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Politico (28 September 2020)

The approval of a contentious Polish energy merger by EU competition [tech] czar Margrethe Vestager — in the face of reluctance from her own staff — is a sign that European industrial policy is rapidly taking a far more political direction.

Since Vestager last year blocked a mega-merger between Alstom and Siemens in the rail sector, EU member countries such as France, Germany and Polandhave launched an all-out assault against Europe's competition enforcers, arguing the focus in Brussels should switch to the creation of bulked-up European corporate champions, rather than protecting consumers.

Publicly, Vestager has pledged to stick to her guns by prioritizing fair competition rather than corporate heavyweights designed to tackle U.S. and Chinese rivals. Most observers, however, are looking for hard evidence of how the Danish commissioner actually handles a cluster of highly politicized mergers on her desk to determine whether the pressure from Paris, Berlin and Warsaw on the supposedly impartial and all-powerful regulator in Brussels is paying off.

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