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I have a very strong tool in competitional enforcement: To do merger control, to look into cartels, misuse of dominant position - when member states hand out favors, for instance, in terms of tax breaks. But even though that's a strong tool, it cannot solve everything.
History shows the power-grab in every religion once it gets organised. And then it's people making you do things that you don't agree with and setting the rules. But it does mean something to me to believe that we are not alone - the human animal is quite a scary thing, left on its own.
You need to have the advice from experienced people coming from different kinds of educational and backgrounds in general, and then you can make a decision. But you need people around you that you trust to give you advice, and you need to make sure that the facts of the case are presented.
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.
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.
Very often, I think about the people that I represent. I meet people who have thousands and thousands of employees and millions and millions of customers - and also make a lot of money. But I think about the millions of Europeans that I represent in order to try to balance that so we can meet on more equal terms.
In Europe, we don't only take offence when one company is treating another company in a way that's illegal. We also look at if governments are joining up with companies that makes it more difficult for other companies. We also see that sometimes government actions can make it very difficult for businesses to compete on their merits.
My parents didn't do office hours, and they did not do vacations, so if you had a problem, you could always come around. I watched them and thought, 'OK, this is what you are supposed to do.' I was very engaged in my local primary school and when I went to secondary school and to university. And one thing led to another, and here I am.