Google’s Foe in Europe: An ‘Iron Lady’
Google在歐洲遇上鐵娘子
By Natasha Singer and James Kanter

Margrethe Vestager, the European Union’s commissioner for competition, who has taken on Google, has a reputation for toughness.
挑戰Google的歐盟競爭事務專員瑪格麗特．維斯塔格素以強悍聞名。

She is also an accomplished knitter, and last year, as Ms. Vestager was leaving her job as Denmark’s minister of the economy, she gave her successor a hand-knit toy elephant noting that the animals “bear no grudge, but they remember well.”
她還是個頗有成就的編織家，去年，維斯塔格即將卸下丹麥經濟部長職務時，送給繼任者手織的大象玩偶，特別指出，大象「不會懷恨，但記性很好。」

That is something of a motto for Ms. Vestager, who has filed formal antitrust charges against Google, saying that the search engine giant had abused its market dominance by systematically favoring its own comparison shopping service over those of its rivals.
這可以看作維斯塔格的座右銘，她已對Google正式提出反托辣斯訴訟，指控這家搜尋引擎巨擘濫用市場占有率，有系統地優待本身的比價購物服務，讓競爭對手處於劣勢。

“It was obvious that a negotiated solution was not a possibility,” Ms. Vestager said. “So I felt we should go in another direction.”
維斯塔格說：「很顯然的，這件事不可能以協商解決。因此我覺得我們應該改走其他方向。」

Ms. Vestager, 47, took over as the European antitrust chief last autumn. As Denmark’s minister of the economy and the interior, she pushed for substantially curtailing unemployment benefits, and came to be known in certain circle as the “Iron Lady of Denmark.”
47歲的維斯塔格去年秋天接任歐盟的反托辣斯主管。她在丹麥經濟暨內政部長任內，推動大幅縮減失業補助，在某些圈子被封為「鐵娘子」。

“You can accuse Margrethe Vestager of many things,” said Bo Lidegaard, the editor in chief of Politiken, a Danish newspaper, “but not of being afraid.”
丹麥「政治報」總編輯波．利德加爾德說：「你可以指控瑪格麗特．維斯塔格很多事，但絕不會說她膽怯。」

Of her approach to her new job, Ms. Vestager said: “Consumers depend on us to make sure that competition is fair and open.”
維斯塔格談到她對新職務的態度：「消費者靠我們確保競爭公平且公開。」

Martin Krasnik, the host of a late-night current affairs television show, describes Ms. Vestager as the most impenetrable politician he has ever interviewed.
丹麥深夜電視時事節目主持人馬丁．克拉斯尼克，維斯塔格是他訪問過的最頑強的政治人物。

“Any deal she makes, it’s about how much power she has and how much power her adversary has,” he said. “She’s totally unsentimental.”
他說：「她做任何交易，完全看她自己有多少實力，對手又有多少實力。她絕不會感情用事。」

But Ms. Vestager said she allowed herself some informality on social media. Last summer during an annual political conference in Denmark, she caught Mr. Krasnik napping on a lawn with his head propped up against a tree trunk. Naturally, she snapped a photo and posted it on her Twitter account.
不過，維斯塔格說，她容許自己在社群網站上不拘小節。在去年夏天丹麥的一場年度政治會議期間，她看到克拉斯尼克在草地上把頭靠在樹幹上小睡。很自然地，她拍了一張照片，貼在她的推特帳號上。

“That was very amusing,” Mr. Krasnik said. “It also puts a human face on her, which might be seen as a necessity, because she is seen as a very tough, coldhearted politician.”
克拉斯尼克說：「很有娛樂效果，也顯露她有人情味的一面，這也許有必要，因為她被視為非常強悍、冷酷的政治人物。」

Ms. Vestager grew up as the daughter of two ministers of the Church of Denmark. Her parents made themselves available to comfort the afflicted at all hours. “I think this very open way of doing their job informed my view of what a society should be like,” she said.
維斯塔格的雙親都是丹麥教會的牧師。她的父母隨時有空安慰受苦的人。她說：「我想，他們這種十分開放的工作方式，灌輸我對社會應該是什麼樣子的看法。」

Ms. Vestager came to prominence in Denmark as the leader of the centrist Social Liberal party. During talks to form a coalition government in 2011, she insisted that her Social Democrat counterpart, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, who is now Denmark’s prime minister, agree to major budget reforms.
維斯塔格在擔任中間派的社會自由黨黨魁時嶄露頭角。2011年進行組成聯合內閣的談判期間，她堅決要求合作對象、現為丹麥總理的社會民主黨黨魁海勒．托寧施密特同意從事重大預算改革。

“When they emerged” from the talks, Mr. Lidegaard said, “there were countless points on which you could accuse Helle and the Socialists of giving up promises and not one major point where Margrethe had lost, or where she said she had to compromise.”
利德加爾德說：「她們談完後，你可以指控海勒和社會黨人放棄承諾的地方數不清，但瑪格麗特沒有輸掉任何一個重點，或是她說她必須妥協的地方。」

Tackling Google as her first priority of business in Brussels was strategic, some antitrust experts say. If Ms. Vestager prevails against Google, it could make it easier for her to bring a case against Gazprom, the Russian national gas behemoth that her office is also investigating.
一些反托辣斯專家說，把處理Google當成她在布魯塞爾的最優先要務是戰略考量。對維斯塔格來說，若能戰勝Google，要控告俄國國營的天然氣巨擘「俄羅斯天然氣公司」就會容易些，她的辦公室也在調查這家公司。

“There is a new marshal in town,” says Christian Bergqvist, an associate professor of competition law at the University of Copenhagen.
哥本哈根大學競爭法副教授克里斯提安．柏格維斯特說：「城裡來了新的警長。」

Among antitrust regulators, Ms. Vestager may be the only marshal self-assured enough to carry around half-knitted elephants in her purse.
在所有反托辣斯業務的主管官員中，維斯塔格也許是唯一一個有自信在皮包裡放著織好一半的大象到處走的警長。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/19/technology/googles-steely-foe-in-europe.html

2015-05-26聯合報/G9版/UNITED DAILY NEWS 田思怡譯 原文參見紐時週報十一版右