margrethe: good morning!aria: you have said many times it would be nice to see a woman at the top of the commission, should that the you? be you? should that margrethe: we need a gender balanced commission. if you look at the portraits, it is obvious that it is about time. maria: and you would like to be that woman? margrethe: that is for after the election. right now, we are deeply engaged in the debate over priorities. fighting climate change, making sure everyone feels safe, handle immigration. of course, to get the dynamic in the european economy to create jobs. so who is due in brussels, that remains to be seen. maria: weeks away from the election, how worried are you about the potential surgeon populism? because we have seen a real pushback. have you bridge that gap? margrethe: i do hope that a lot of people who say it is quite fine and probably be all right, i have other things to do so i will not go vote, that they will say it is my right to vote, i want to support, you know, centrist, calm, considere

margrethe: the european union is a union built on the rule of law.gh sometimes our processes, we ask a lot of questions. a lot of information is exchanged, but every business knows it is the same for their competitor. it is the same upstream for those who give input. same downstream for those who buy the products. i think that certainty, that is really a treasure because it knows you can predict what will authorities do here. you can make analysis, take advice. you know what to do. i think for the business community, that kind of predictability and certainty, that is part of a good business environment. maria: another big area for you is american tech. i want to ask you two questions. in terms of the investigations, are we done with that or can we see more probes? in terms of fines, i hear the counterargument that ultimately these companies do not really care because they can pay it. should you may be go into restricting the access to the market as a way to make sure they behave accordingly? margrethe: on your first question, no, we are definitely no

and then there is margrethe vestager from denmark. her alliance gained 40 seats in the election last week. she has the backing of emmanuel macron. it is a complicated picture. we are hoping that max hofmann can clear things up for us a little. good to see you. it seems like there is a lot of disagreement in the eu over this question. max: and like you said, it is extreme he complicated. we could not even talk about a 10th of what is going on if you think about all the different countries and interests. north, south, social democrats, liberals, conservatives. but the true frontline we have right now you mentioned it is between angela merkel and emmanuel macron. angela merkel is supporting this process which is called, and you explained it. i know it is a terrible word but it basically says that only those who have officially been lead candidates for the group in the european parliament and eventually be elected to become president of the european commission. and ththere are not that many there. notably manfred weber, the head of the gr

perhaps even this woman, eu commissioner margrethe vestager. >> t the german government is committedo the principle o of the lead candidate. however, the parties represented in the coalition have different views as to which candididate is best suited. >> if everyone just stays with their preferred names, we will be stuck because none of the groups have a majority all alone. and even if two of them work together, we still don't have a majority. we need three or four groups to do this. reporter: some believe merkel is behind the curve on this because she herself will soon be leaving her own job. >> there is a kind of missed opportunity between france and germany. the germans were at one point more european than the french. there's too much of an economic discrepancy between france and germany. germany is the first economic power in europe, so europe is less vital for germany than it is for france, and that is quite sad. reporter: it is now down to another eu chiefef, donald tusk, to try and come up with an acceptablele nomineeoror the net commission president. but with germany and fran

the race is on as elections approach, we talk to the competition commissioner margrethe vestager abouturope and her role. on the bottom line, shares jumping as the chief executive starts to address investor doubt while the finance chief says the outlook is good. >> our target certainly is to have positive growth throughout the year. if you strip out the one offs and revenue this quarter, underlying growth was broadly in line with cost growth. ♪

are actually, they candidate to running the next position is margrethe vestager, the danish competition commissioner. she has been coming out with a very bullish set of statements since the results have started to come in. she is making a big pitch for the job. she has made clear she is a candidate. she feels like she has a strong the conservative candidate has been much more cautious in his comments. the game is now on to see who will be getting those jobs. will not bepulists completely absent from this parliament. marine le pen's party performed well, better than any others. and then of course there is nigel faraj's brexit party in the u.k. which has performed better than his predecessor. what fun is he going to have in the eu parliament? gets his way,he he will not be around very long to have any fun in the eu parliament at all. whether he will, whether the next leader will indeed managed to deliver brexit, i don't think anyone really knows. in the meantime, faraj will be there with a big delegation and he will remain a thorn in the side of the eu as they try to go about their busine