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Vestager is certainly not anti-American

 |  July 2, 2019

From Anthony Luzzatto Gardner, London, UK

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President Donald Trump’s recent attack on EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager was out of line. That “tax woman”, as he likes to call her, does not “hate” the US. I have had the pleasure of dealing with her on many occasions, both during my mandate as US ambassador to the EU and subsequently.

While we have had our disagreements, we always handled them effectively in private. I have always found her to be conscientious and serious. She is one of the superstars of this European Commission. And she is certainly not anti-American. As she is a candidate to be the next commission president, it is particularly short-sighted to attack her.

Criticisms of EU antitrust procedures as being anti-American are simply wrong. Every exhaustive analysis of EU merger and antitrust cases show that there is no anti-US bias. Those claiming otherwise are simply playing soapbox politics.

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