Speaker 1: Apple and Google both lost big legal battles with the
Speaker 1: European Union. For Apple, it was over an EU ordered
Speaker 1: Irish tax bill of over fourteen billion dollars. Google, on
Speaker 1: the other hand, lost its challenge to and over two
Speaker 1: billion dollar fine for abusing its market power in the
Speaker 1: search business. Both cases were among the biggest competition cases
Speaker 1: in the EU's history. Following the rule in Bloomberg's Max
Speaker 1: Ramsey spoke with EU Competition chief Margaret Vestayer.
Speaker 2: Two huge victories. What does this mean for you personally?
Speaker 2: What does this mean for European citizens?
Speaker 3: Well, I think it's a very important step towards tax
Speaker 3: justice that Apple now actually have to pay the thirteen
Speaker 3: billion euros to the Irish States. I think that shows
Speaker 3: European citizens at actually, once in a while, tax justice
Speaker 3: can take place. And it's important to me as well.
Speaker 3: I'm very very happy with this win.
Speaker 2: I can totally imagine and I guess you know, we
Speaker 2: never start thinking about what's next as well. You do
Speaker 2: have a fourth case against Google and the ad tech business.
Speaker 2: I think I'm right that previously you've suggested a resolution
Speaker 2: to this could be a breakup. I mean, do you
Speaker 2: see that as the resolution that's going.
Speaker 4: To need to happen. Is that the only way forward
Speaker 4: on that case.
Speaker 3: Well, of course it may be that we are not,
Speaker 3: you know, using all our imagination, but the thing is
Speaker 3: that there is an inherent conflict of interest because Google
Speaker 3: earns the marketplace, it earns the seller, it earns the
Speaker 3: buyer who uses this marketplace. So it's difficult for us
Speaker 3: to see any other solution. Of course, reopen is but
Speaker 3: the case is very very advanced. So yeah, let's see
Speaker 3: what decision we can reach.
Speaker 2: And then, I mean, looking back over the past ten years,
Speaker 2: You've been in this role as the head of the
Speaker 2: competition for for ten years. In that time, you've had
Speaker 2: huge cases, You've had, you know, huge pieces of regulation
Speaker 2: that have you know, caused times pushback, particularly from big
Speaker 2: tech companies, from former president on the Trump. How have
Speaker 2: you dealt with these kind of sometimes fractious relationships you
Speaker 2: know yourself personally.
Speaker 3: Well, I've tried not to make it personal because I
Speaker 3: think it comes with the job. You need to be
Speaker 3: able to do a job. Also when people do not
Speaker 3: agree with you, also when people are aggressive towards you,
Speaker 3: because otherwise it's not possible. And of course also my
Speaker 3: responsibility to push because the world is changing. So you know,
Speaker 3: we look at a lot more now at innovation. In
Speaker 3: our cases, we lose innovation, can innovation be enabled? So
Speaker 3: it has been a process of renewal and I think
Speaker 3: that is really really important. Also when people disagree with
Speaker 3: you that you try to push on and.
Speaker 2: The world is changing, I think is very interesting to
Speaker 2: bring up because of course we have had this report
Speaker 2: from Mario Drugi, We've had previously the report from Enrico Letta,
Speaker 2: and there is talk, you know, even harder push from
Speaker 2: others around loosening state age rules or you know, allowing
Speaker 2: more mergers to kind of boost European companies or create
Speaker 2: European champions.
Speaker 4: What do you think of that? Do you see risks
Speaker 4: in that approach?
Speaker 3: Well, I think from what I have read so far
Speaker 3: in the Dwagi report, actually he calls for ending temporary
Speaker 3: state ed rules. He's asking for a prudent state aid approach,
Speaker 3: but for more European approach, which is what we have
Speaker 3: in what we call important Projects of common European interests.
Speaker 3: We have ten of those projects, a total of private
Speaker 3: and public investment more than one hundred billion euros. So
Speaker 3: I think that is a very important push because we
Speaker 3: have faced the acute crisises of the pandemic, war, energy crisis,
Speaker 3: but the slow crisis of you know, the eroding of
Speaker 3: our competitiveness is something that needs to be phased head on.
Speaker 3: So I really hope that the Drug Report, the Letter
Speaker 3: Report will make us focus making the single market work,
Speaker 3: have more people use their talent, have capital made available
Speaker 3: for businesses who want us to scale. So I think
Speaker 3: it's a very important time of the European Union to
Speaker 3: be able to solve also the slowly emerging crisis of
Speaker 3: eroading of competitiveness. Now, when we have showed that the
Speaker 3: acute crisises, they can actually be solved.
Speaker 2: And I guess does that also call for any kind
Speaker 2: of paradigm shift in competition policy or do you see
Speaker 2: this you know, continuing under your success as you have
Speaker 2: led the competition policy of the Commission.
Speaker 3: Well, we have renewed quite a number of things, so
Speaker 3: we have a much more thorough look at innovation. We
Speaker 3: have made it clear how do we look at markets,
Speaker 3: because of course more markets become global. How can we
Speaker 3: assess that we have prepared the grounds to look at
Speaker 3: the regulation that governs how we look at abuse of
Speaker 3: dominant position. So there are quite a number of things
Speaker 3: that has been renewed, and we have sort of paved
Speaker 3: the way for I think a bitter administration, more better
Speaker 3: access to file so there would be plenty of work
Speaker 3: for my successor to.
Speaker 4: Do, I don't doubt.
Speaker 2: And then I guess just a final reflection on these
Speaker 2: judgments today. I mean, you mentioned the press conference that
Speaker 2: you were brought to tears I think by the judgments.
Speaker 2: I mean, do you feel is this a kind of
Speaker 2: vindication coming at the end of your term?
Speaker 4: You know of your work over the past ten years.
Speaker 3: Well, I think you need to of course own your victories,
Speaker 3: but you also own your defeats, and we have had both,
Speaker 3: and hopefully that shows that we're willing to push the
Speaker 3: envelopes also sometimes to take a risk in order to
Speaker 3: try to make sure that the market serves the consumer
Speaker 3: and that we are not just small meet for the machine.
Speaker 3: And I hope that is what people take down from
Speaker 3: today's judgment, both that we won the Google case and
Speaker 3: it's final, and we won the Apple case and it's final.
Speaker 1: That's Margaret Vesteer, Executive Vice President of the European Commission
Speaker 1: for a Europe Fit for the Digital Age and Commission
Speaker 1: for Competition. For more conversations like this one, subscribe to
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg Talks podcast. I'm Charlie Pellett, and this is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg