Ian King, business presenter

It's all academic to British voters, of course, but May this year will see elections for the European Parliament.

A new parliament also means new European commissioners. That could have profound implications for businesses operating in or with Europe and, also, for consumers.

Among those likely to be departing is Margrethe Vestager, the EU's current competition commissioner, who has made a huge impact in Brussels.

Ms Vestager, a Dane on whom the main character in the political TV thriller Borgen was apparently based, is unlikely to continue in the job because, in Denmark, a politician from the governing party is usually appointed as the country's commissioner. Ms Vestager's party, the Danish Social Liberal Party, is no longer in power.


Her departure will be celebrated by America's tech giants as Ms Vestager has proved a doughty opponent for them. She slapped Google with a record €4.3bn fine last summer, for abusing the dominant market position of its Android operating system in mobile phones, having separately fined it €2.42bn in June 2017 for abusing its near-monopoly in search to favouring its own shopping site. She also went after Apple for accepting illegal state aid from Ireland and ordered the company to pay €13bn in back taxes to Dublin. Amazon was also made to pay €250m in back taxes to the government of Luxembourg for similar offences.

Image: Margrethe Vestager will fall foul of Emmanuel Macron if she does not back down

These are major achievements. Ms Vestager has been far tougher on the US tech giants than America's own regulators. The scandal engulfing Facebook for improperly sharing data on millions of its users has finally opened the eyes of many to the ingrained institutional arrogance of some of these businesses. More effective regulation in their home market, earlier, might have prevented the Facebook scandal and other abuses.

The US howled that Ms Vestager was just being protectionist in targeting its companies. McDonald's, Nike and Starbucks have also been in her sights while, just this week, she fined Mastercard €570m for anti-competitive behaviour. But she has also taken on companies closer to home. Carmaker Fiat and Russian energy giant Gazprom have also been targeted, as has Bulgarian energy group Bulgargaz and Ryanair, the Irish airline.

So Ms Vestager will be leaving her post with a proud record of having stood up to corporate titans and of being a consumer champion in a way that her two immediate predecessors, Joaquin Almunia and Neelie Kroes, were not.

The next commission president will need to be a tough individual prepared to stop Franco-German domination of the EU and to stand up for the rest of its members.

Unfortunately, it is possible that her successor will not be nearly so effective. There is a growing concern among some politicians, notably Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel, that Europe lacks as many companies that are global leaders in their field as China or the United States. That partly reflects the fact that Europe is a more fragmented and less homogenous market than either the US or China.

But it also reflects the fact that the commission, particularly under Ms Vestager, has enforced competition rules vigorously. Mrs Merkel complained in a speech in June last year that EU competition law "does not help us sufficiently" to create global champions. Ms Vestager has refuted this, noting that EU competition law had helped facilitate the creation of European global leaders in industries such as cement and dairy products.

But Ms Vestager's successor is likely to come under more pressure to allow big mergers to go through and particularly once the UK, traditionally the strongest champion of pro-competition policies, has left the EU.

Mr Macron, a former investment banker, is now actively encouraging French companies to embark on cross-border mergers to create European champions.

As Bruno Le Maire, the French finance minister, put it in an interview with the Financial Times last year: "If we want to be able to face competition with Chinese giants, we have to gather the European forces."

One example of this is how Mr Macron has urged Naval Group, the French military shipbuilder, to form an alliance with its Italian rival Fincantieri that could lead to a full-blown merger.

Image: European competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager has been tough on big tech firms

The best-known is the backing both Mr Macron and Mrs Merkel have given to a proposed merger between the French train maker Alstom and the rail division of German industrial giant Siemens. The combined business would rival China's CRRC as the world's largest train maker and has been described by Mr Macron as "Airbus on rail".

Ms Vestager sees it differently. She has already warned the business would have an over-dominant position in the market for high-speed trains and rail signalling systems and could harm consumers if it results in train operators being forced to pay higher prices for rolling stock.

With Ms Vestager having indicated that Siemens and Alstom will have to sell some businesses in order for the commission to give the merger the green light, the scene is set for a showdown, as Mr Le Maire warned earlier this month that blocking the merger would be a "political mistake" by the commission.

Ms Vestager is unlikely to back down. She has been backed by competition regulators in Britain, Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands and even Germany itself. They have all called for the deal to be blocked, as has the Office of Rail and Road, Britain's rail regulator.

But if she does not back down, she will fall foul of Mr Macron, who will be one of the key players in deciding who succeeds Jean-Claude Juncker as European Commission president - a role Ms Vestager is said to be keen on.

The irony is that, with Britain gone, the next commission president will need to be a tough individual prepared to stop Franco-German domination of the EU and to stand up for the rest of its members.

Ms Vestager's track record makes her the obvious candidate.

Sky Views is a series of comment pieces by Sky News editors and correspondents, published every morning.

Previously on Sky Views: Rowland Manthorpe - 200 years ago, the US stole technology. Now, history is repeating itself