Vestager: 'a gender-balanced Commission can do unprecedented work'

Margrethe Vestager is one of the EU's most powerful figures. The Executive Vice President of the European Commission is known for slapping US big tech giants with multi-billion euro fines, actions which earned her the sobriquet 'the tax lady'' from former US President Donald Trump. The Dane will soon bid farewell to Brussels after being in charge of competition and digital policies for almost ten years. For Euronews Witness reporter Maïa de La Baume spoke with her about her time in office and the big challenges facing the European Union today and the in the future.

Among those will be achieving greater female representatation in the parliament and Commission, which has gone backwards since elections in June. Vestager describes it as a "demasking of the lack of efforts when it comes to equal opportunities and gender balance," but she praises Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's for pressuring member states to do more: "Every prime minister would say I put my own government together. She's only asking for two people to choose from. And I think it's it's really a pity that Member States do not follow through and gives her this opportunity to make the best possible Commission and to make it gender balanced, because we were we were making progress. We were, you know, also visually showing that, a Commission that is gender balanced is capable of doing, you know, unprecedented work, as we did in this mandate under the leadership of Ursula von der Leyen," she says.

Restricting the impact of the far right on rule of law in the EU should also be a priority for pro-institution politicians, following the big gains for hardline nationalist parties in the recent European elections, Vestager believes. "The good thing about where