Citizens' Dialogue in Bucharest with Commissioner Margrethe Vestager

Thank you Romania for this ‘first time experience’ – a Ministerial meeting with nine women and only one man – it’s a good day for gender equality. 

Commissioner Margrethe Vestager

The debate was held at the Cervantes Institute in the Old Town
of Bucharest with a room full of some 100 professionals, students and local stakeholders. 

This dialogue demonstrated perfectly the appetite amongst citizens
to engage in a strong and open debate with decisions makers from ‘Brussels’. Further, Margrethe Vestager encouraged the audience
by saying ‘it is so important that you feel that you own this debate’ which resulted in many passionate questions from an enthusiastic audience.

A young female NGO worker opened the debate by explaining that new Romanian legislation restricted the collection of recyclable waste to be carried out only by public companies.

The participant argued that this law limits free and fair competition and wanted the Commissioner’s view and advice on the matter.

Ms. Vestager explained that such a complaint should be brought forward to the national competition authorities.

The young woman replied promptly, that she had already done so with no result. ‘Well, then you should complain to me’ the Commissioner replied and promised that such cases would be looked at, however the Commissioner couldn’t guarantee the final outcome.

Other competition related questions followed, that focused on the logic behind the Google cases and touched on the role we should want the IT giants to play in a competitive and social responsible Europe.

On ‘Digital Taxation’ the Commissioner added ‘that sometimes our biggest challenge is ourselves’ and questioned why we in Europe continue to accept that ‘web-based’ businesses get away with a 9% tax rate while other physical businesses get hit by a 23% tax-rate.

As the debate turned to the topics of democracy, the European Parliament Elections and the ‘Rule of law’ the audience felt more comfortable with the Commissioner and consequently engaged with more passion.

Commissioner Vestager addressed a question from
a young man who claimed that the EU should tackle the lack of democracy in any member state by explaining that in her view there is no perfect template for democracy and that we in Europe enjoys democracy at two levels: the national level and EU level.

The Commissioner continued that each Member State is free to adopt its own national rules within the respect of the common European values.

More than 90% of the audience replied that they will vote during the upcoming European Parliament Elections in May.

A delighted Ms. Vestager expressed her hope that the result would be representative for the country as a whole – since the statics suggest a historical low public interest to vote in these elections. A participant asked: ‘what is your message to Romanian voters’?

The Commissioner encouraged everyone to engage and make it ‘a positive social event with friends and family, as elections are about people making a choice for their future’.