Margrethe Vestager: “I am an outsider, that can work in my favor”

It's not just King Charles who is visiting Paris this Wednesday. The Danish “queen” of competition, vice-president of the European Commission, from which she has withdrawn, was in the capital to defend her chances of being appointed head of the European Investment Bank (EIB ), the EU financial giant, based in Luxembourg. Well aware of not being favorite in the race, she is playing her best to try to convince the bank's shareholders: the 27 European states, first and foremost France, Germany, Italy and Spain. .

However, among the five candidates to succeed the German Werner Hoyer, at the end of the year, the Spanish Minister of the Economy, Nadia Calviño, seemed to hold the lead. Also in the race are the former Italian Finance Minister, Daniele Franco, and two current vice-presidents of the EIB, the Polish Teresa Czerwinska and the Swede Thomas Ostros.

Officially, Paris has not announced who it is supporting, although it is said to lean in favor of the Spaniard. Vestager hopes to have an interview with Bruno Le Maire on Wednesday, whom she already met in July to defend her candidacy. “I think that France, as has been said publicly, has not made its choice,” she said Wednesday morning during a coffee at the Danish embassy.

The grievances against him have accumulated: from the banning of the Alstom-Siemens merger in 2019 to his attempt this year to impose an American economist on the Commission, which Paris worked to fail. More broadly, the former Danish minister is accused of being too liberal and hostile to state intervention in the economy. The one who defines herself as a “social liberal” rejects these labels. “We have a social market economy in Europe,” she argues. We can't let the market solve climate change, we need direct intervention through subsidies. »

Another subject of contention: Paris demands that the EIB, self-proclaimed “climate bank”, finance nuclear power, which it does not do, due to lack of political consensus. Vestager calls herself “pragmatic” and “nuanced” on this issue. “Today, there is a disagreement on nuclear power, and not a ban within the EIB board of directors,” she explains. We must not import the divisions of the European Council into the bank. We cannot finance something on which there is no political agreement. But the EIB could perhaps finance research into future small nuclear reactors.”

Margrethe Vestager plays the card of the candidate from a small country who has, for almost ten years, served the interests of Europe within the Brussels Commission. She wants the EIB to take more risks, particularly to finance digital start-ups. She was to address the sector during the France Digitale forum. If she is aware that “it is not a given that I have this job”, “it is not a given that I do not have it” either. “I am an outsider, which can work in my favor,” she wants to believe.

After a first round of discussion between Finance Ministers of the Twenty-Seven during a summit in Spain last week, a decision is hoped for at their next meeting in mid-October. A consensus will be difficult to find: a majority of 68% of the votes of EIB shareholders and also the support of 18 countries must be gathered.