Margrethe Vestager

What I have come to realize over the twenty years when I have worked in different roles as a legislator is that no legislation is as good as the enforcement of it.

Being a politician, I know how motivating it can be when the public is outraged.

You can be big, and you can be successful, but you cannot abuse your power to stop others from challenging you from being the next big thing in five or ten years.

In Europe, we would congratulate anyone who is successful. But congratulations stop if we find that you start to misuse a dominant position.

When we do merger rulings, we have strict deadlines: 25 days. It is extremely intensive, and you must decide how you can do it before your spouse says, 'You know I still love you, but please spend some more time at home.'

On Amazon, you find retailers that want Amazon to do part of their services. Those, you don't find to the same degree on Google Shopping. On Google Shopping, you find sort of the bigger brands, those who want to have the customer relationship themselves - the data, the payment details, the search patterns.

I'm definitely a techno-optimist. I think we can do amazing things. But in my experience, if a thing has great potential, there is also a risk of great downsides, so to speak. Coming from a truly, really enthusiastic 'wow decade,' we are now moving into waters where we are somewhat more cautious.

When I was very young, I took no interest in party politics. My line of interest was how can you be part of an influence to the society that you live in.

If you're successful in the market, it should be because you have the best products. Then your customers like you, not because then you cut corners, or you get a tax break, or you don't inform authorities about how things actually are.

Planning is like taking on blinders. I think it is a wise thing to be open to whatever shows up on your doorstep.

It's my impression that investment in Europe is done for the right reasons. Europe is a very good place to do business; it's a large market.

I think it's a completely good thing to want to do business, to want to make money and be a success in the marketplace, to get the attention of customers. I'm not in the business of pointing fingers or blaming companies, but there is a limit to everything.