Let's go back to 1957. Representatives from six European countries had come to Rome to sign the treaty that was to create the European Union. Europe was destroyed. A world war had emerged from Europe. The human suffering was unbelievable and unprecedented. Those men wanted to create a peaceful, democratic Europe, a Europe that works for its people.
让我们回到1957年 六个欧洲国家的代表 来到罗马 签署成立欧盟的条约 世界大战起于欧洲 使欧洲惨不忍睹 人民承受着难以想象 和前所未有的苦难 那些代表 想建立一个和平 民主的欧洲 一个为欧洲人运作的欧洲
And one of the many building blocks in that peace project was a common European market. Already back then, they saw how markets, when left to themselves, can sort of slip into being just the private property of big businesses and cartels, meeting the needs of some businesses and not the needs of customers.
该和平项目中的 一个组成部分 就是建立欧洲共同市场 早在那时 他们就已知道 如果不监管市场 市场就会沦为大企业和联合集团的 私有财产 只满足一些企业的需求 而非消费者的需求
So from our very first day, in 1957, the European Union had rules to defend fair competition. And that means competition on the merits, that you compete on the quality of your products, the prices you can offer, the services, the innovation that you produce. That's competition on the merits. You have a fair chance of making it on such a market. And it's my job, as Commissioner for Competition, to make sure that companies who do business in Europe live by those rules.
所以,在1957年 从欧盟建立的第一天起 欧盟就制定规定 来维持公平竞争 也就是按水平竞争 根据产品品质、价格 服务 和创新性来竞争 这就是根据水平竞争 在这样的市场,你有公平的机会崭露头角 身为市场竞争事务专员 我的工作就是 确保在欧洲做生意的企业 遵守这些规范
But let's take a step back. Why do we need rules on competition at all? Why not just let businesses compete? Isn't that also the best for us if they compete freely, since more competition drives more quality, lower prices, more innovation? Well, mostly it is. But the problem is that sometimes, for businesses, competition can be inconvenient, because competition means that the race is never over, the game is never won. No matter how well you were doing in the past, there's always someone who are out there wanting to take your place. So the temptation to avoid competition is powerful. It's rooted in motives as old as Adam and Eve: in greed for yet more money, in fear of losing your position in the market and all the benefits it brings.
但退一步来看 为何我们需要这些市场竞争的规范? 为何不直接让企业自由竞争? 对我们来说 企业自由竞争不是更好吗? 因为竞争越激烈 产品质量就越高 价格也会降低,创新性更高 大多数情况下是这样 但问题是,有时在企业间 竞争会是个阻碍 因为竞争永远持续着 没有结束的一天 不论你过去表现多好 总有某些人 虎视耽耽想取代你 所以,避免竞争的诱惑 十分强大 这种深深植入人心的诱惑,和亚当夏娃一样古老: 贪婪更多财富 害怕失去在市场的地位 和它带来的所有好处
And when greed and fear are linked to power, you have a dangerous mix. We see that in political life. In part of the world, the mix of greed and fear means that those who get power become reluctant to give it back. One of the many things I like and admire in our democracies are the norms that make our leaders hand over power when voters tell them to. And competition rules can do a similar thing in the market, making sure that greed and fear doesn't overcome fairness. Because those rules mean that companies cannot misuse their power to undermine competition.
当贪婪和恐惧 与权力扯上关系 就很危险了 这在政治中很常见 在世上某处 贪婪和恐惧的组合 意味着表示拥有权力的人 不愿将权力交给他人 在我们的民主制度中 我喜欢并钦佩的诸多优点之一,就是 规定选民可决定 领导人是否该 交出权力 在市场中,竞争规范有着相似的作用 它确保贪婪和恐惧不会威胁到公平性 因为这些规范意味着 公司不可滥用权力破坏竞争
Think for a moment about your car. It has thousands of parts, from the foam that makes the seats to the electrical wiring to the light bulbs. And for many of those parts, the world's carmakers, they are dependent on only a few suppliers. So it's hardly surprising that it is kind of tempting for those suppliers to come together and fix prices. But just imagine what that could do to the final price of your new car in the market. Except, it's not imaginary. The European Commission has dealt with already seven different car parts cartels, and we're still investigating some. Here, the Department of Justice are also looking into the market for car parts, and it has called it the biggest criminal investigation it has ever pursued. But without competition rules, there would be no investigation, and there would be nothing to stop this collusion from happening and the prices of your car to go up.
就拿你的车来说 它由数千个零件组成 从座椅的海绵 到电线,到灯泡 对于许多这些零件 世上的汽车制造商 只依赖少数供应商 所以,那些供应商会被诱惑到 聚在一起定价格 这一点也不奇怪 但是想像一下,这么做 对新车在市场上的最终价格有何影响 然而这些并非虚构 欧盟委员会 已处理了七件不同车零件的垄断案例 还有一些案例我们仍在调查 在这里,司法部 也在调查车零件的市场 并称其为有史以来最大宗的 刑事调查 但是如果没有竞争规范 就不会有任何调查 也没办法阻止这种勾当 然后你轿车的价格就会飙升
Yet it's not only companies who can undermine fair competition. Governments can do it, too. And governments do that when they hand out subsidies to just the favorite few, the selected. They may do that when they hand out subsidies -- and, of course, all financed by taxpayers -- to companies. That may be in the form of special tax treatments, like the tax benefits that firms like Fiat, Starbucks and Apple got from some governments in Europe. Those subsidies stop companies from competing on equal terms. They can mean that the companies that succeed, well, they are the companies that got the most subsidy, the ones that are the best-connected, and not, as it should be, the companies that serve consumers the best. So there are times when we need to step in to make sure that competition works the way it should. By doing that, we help the market to work fairly, because competition gives consumers the power to demand a fair deal. It means that companies know that if they cannot offer good prices or the service that's expected, well, the customers will go somewhere else.
破坏公平竞争的 除了公司企业 还有政府机构 政府发补贴给受青睐的少数时 就已经在破坏公平竞争了 政府发补贴给企业的时候 也可能破坏公平竞争 当然,所有费用由纳税人买单 这种破坏可能以特别税收待遇的形式出现 比如,赋税优惠 像菲亚特,星巴克和苹果这类大公司 在欧洲得到一些政府的税收优惠 这些补贴破坏了公司间的公平竞争 这意味着成功的公司 是那些得到最多补贴的公司 也是最会搞关系的公司 然而成功的公司应该是 给消费者最好的服务的 所以,我们得时不时介入 确保竞争依其原本的方式进行 这么做,我们帮助市场公平运作 因为竞争使消费者有权做公平的交易 这表示,如果公司企业 知道自己不能提供更好的价格 或提供预期的服务 那么消费者就会另寻他处
And that sort of fairness is more important than we may sometimes realize. Very few people think about politics all the time. Some even skip it at election time. But we are all in the market. Every day, we are in the market. And we don't want businesses to agree on prices in the back office. We don't want them to divide the market between them. We don't want one big company just to shut out competitors from ever showing us what they can do.
这种公平性 有时比我们认为的更重要 很少人成天思考政治 有些人甚至忽略选举活动 但我们都置身于市场中 每一天,我们都在市场里 我们不希望企业背地里制定统一价格 不希望他们在彼此之间分割市场 不希望一间大公司 打压屏蔽其他对手 不给它们表现的机会
If that happens, well, obviously, we feel that someone has cheated us, that we are being ignored or taken for granted by the market. And that may undermine not only our trust in the market but also our trust in the society. In a recent survey, more than two-thirds of Europeans said that they had felt the effects of lack of competition: that the price for electricity was too high, that the price for the medicines they needed was too high, that they had no real choice if they wanted to travel by bus or by plane, or they got poor service from their internet provider. In short, they found that the market didn't treat them fairly. And that might seem like very small things, but they can give you this sense that the world isn't really fair. And they see the market, which was supposed to serve everyone, become more like the private property of a few powerful companies.
如果这种事发生了 显然我们会感到被欺骗 被忽略或不被市场重视 这不只危害我们对市场的信任 也危害我们对社会的信任 最近一项调查显示 超过2/3的欧洲人 感受到缺乏竞争的影响: 电费过高 所需的药价格也过高 如果他们想乘公交 或搭飞机旅行,他们并没有真正的选择机会 他们互联网提供商给予差劲的服务等等 简而言之,他们发现市场交易并不公平 乍看之下,这些都是小事 但它们可以给你一种 这个世界并不公平的感觉 他们看出本该是服务大众的市场 变得像少数大公司的私有财产
The market is not the society. Our societies are, of course, much, much more than the market. But lack of trust in the market can rub off on society so we lose trust in our society as well. And it may be the most important thing we have, trust. We can trust each other if we are treated as equals. If we are all to have the same chances, well, we all have to follow the same fundamental rules. Of course, some people and some businesses are more successful than others, but we do not trust in a society if the prizes are handed out even before the contest begins.
市场不是社会 我们的社会,当然比市场要大许多 但缺少对市场的信任 会影响整个社会 所以我们也对社会失去信任 信任是我们所拥有最重要的东西 我们如果受到公平对待,就会信任彼此 如果我们都有同样的机会 那么,我们必须遵守同样的基本规则 当然,一些人和企业比其他人更成功 但如果在比赛开始前 就已颁发奖项 我们就无法信任这个社会
And this is where competition rules come in, because when we make sure that markets work fairly, then businesses compete on the merits, and that helps to build the trust that we need as citizens to feel comfortable and in control, and the trust that allows our society to work. Because without trust, everything becomes harder. Just to live our daily lives, we need to trust in strangers, to trust the banks who keep our money, the builders who build our home, the electrician who comes to fix the wiring, the doctor who treats us when we're ill, not to mention the other drivers on the road, and everyone knows that they are crazy. And yet, we have to trust them to do the right thing. And the thing is that the more our societies grow, the more important trust becomes and the harder it is to build. And that is a paradox of modern societies. And this is especially true when technology changes the way that we interact. Of course, to some degree, technology can help us to build trust in one another with ratings systems and other systems that enable the sharing economy. But technology also creates completely new challenges when they ask us not to trust in other people but to trust in algorithms and computers.
这就是竞争规范要解决的问题 因为当我们确保市场公平运行时 企业就会老老实实竞争 这帮助我们建立人民所需的信任 让我们感到舒适 感到可以掌控我们的选择 这种信任帮助使我们的社会运作 因为没有信任,每件事就变得困难 为了过好日常生活,我们必须信任陌生人 信任保管我们钱财的银行 盖我们房子的工人 来修电线的电工 我们生病时所看的医生 更不用说路上的其他驾驶员 大家都知道他们很疯狂 但我们仍需相信他们 会做正确的事 我们的社会越是成长 信任就越发重要 但也越难建立 这就是现代社会的矛盾之处 这尤其表现在 当科技改变我们的相处模式时 某种程度上,通过评分系统 和其他系统科技可帮助我们 建立对彼此的信任,开启共享经济 但科技也带来前所未有的挑战 科技要我们不去相信其他人 改而相信算法和计算机
Of course, we all see and share and appreciate all the good that new technology can do us. It's a lot of good. Autonomous cars can give people with disabilities new independence. It can save us all time, and it can make a much, much better use of resources. Algorithms that rely on crunching enormous amounts of data can enable our doctors to give us a much better treatment, and many other things. But no one is going to hand over their medical data or step into a car that's driven by an algorithm unless they trust the companies that they are dealing with. And that trust isn't always there. Today, for example, less than a quarter of Europeans trust online businesses to protect their personal information.
当然,我们都见证、分享和感激 新科技所带来的好处 优点有很多 自动驾驶汽车让残障人士更独立 科技可随时帮助我们 也可更有效率地使用资源 依赖大数据的算法 可使医生给我们更好的治疗 还有许多其他好处 但没人会交出他们的医疗数据 或踏进一台由算法驾驶的车 除非他们相信提供服务的公司 这种信任并非无所不在 今日,不到1/4的欧洲人 认为线上企业能保护个人信息
But what if people knew that they could rely on technology companies to treat them fairly? What if they knew that those companies respond to competition by trying to do better, by trying to serve consumers better, not by using their power to shut out competitors, say, by pushing their services far, far down the list of search results and promoting themselves? What if they knew that compliance with the rules was built into the algorithms by design, that the algorithm had to go to competition rules school before they were ever allowed to work, that those algorithms were designed in a way that meant that they couldn't collude, that they couldn't form their own little cartel in the black box they're working in?
但如果人们知道 科技公司能公平对待自己 会如何? 如果他们知道那些公司 对待竞争的方式就是做得更好 更好地服务顾客 而不是滥用权力 打压竞争对手 比如,将他们的服务 远远推到搜寻结果列表之外 只推销自己 假使他们知道 遵守规范是有意建立于算法之中 在它能运作之前 算法得先确保竞争规范被遵守 这些演算法是用来避免 不正当的勾结 不会暗箱操作 搞垄断的小集团
Together with regulation, competition rules can do that. They can help us to make sure that new technology treats people fairly and that everyone can compete on a level playing field. And that can help us build the trust that we need for real innovation to flourish and for societies to develop for citizens. Because trust cannot be imposed. It has to be earned.
有了法规的帮助 竞争规范可以实现这一点 可以帮我们确保 新的科技公平待人 人人都能以同等条件竞争 这也能帮我们建立 真正创新所需的 信任 让社会的发展为人民服务 因为信任不能强加于人 它必须要被赢来
Since the very first days of the European Union, 60 years ago, our competition rules have helped to build that trust. A lot of things have changed. It's hard to say what those six representatives would have made of a smartphone. But in today's world, as well as in their world, competition makes the market work for everyone. And that is why I am convinced that real and fair competition has a vital role to play in building the trust we need to get the best of our societies, and that starts with enforcing our rules, actually just to make the market work for everyone.
自60年前欧盟成立的 头几天起 我们的竞争规范已帮助 建立市场信任 很多事改变了 这六位代表会用智能手机做什么 很难说 但在今日的世界 和他们那时的世界 竞争让市场为每个人运作 这也是为何,我深信 真正的公平的竞争 在建立我们所需的信任 来充分利用我们的社会时 发挥着重要的作用 这一切从执行我们的规范开始 让市场为每个人运作
Thank you.
谢谢
(Applause)
(掌声)
Bruno Giussani: Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner.
吉萨尼:谢谢 谢谢您,专员
Margrethe Vestager: It was a pleasure.
韦斯塔格尔:我的荣幸
BG: I want to ask you two questions. The first one is about data, because I have the impression that technology and data are changing the way competition takes place and the way competition regulation is designed and enforced. Can you maybe comment on that?
吉萨尼:我想请教您两个问题 第一个是关于数据,因为我总有个印象 认为科技和数据正改变竞争发生的方式 和竞争法规设计与执行的方式 您能给些看法吗?
MV: Well, yes, it is definitely challenging us, because we both have to sharpen our tools but also to develop new tools. When we were going through the Google responses to our statement of objection, we were going through 5.2 terabytes of data. It's quite a lot. So we had to set up new systems. We had to figure out how to do this, because you cannot work the way you did just a few years ago. So we are definitely sharpening up our working methods. The other thing is that we try to distinguish between different kinds of data, because some data is extremely valuable and they will form, like, a barrier to entry in a market. Other things you can just -- it loses its value tomorrow. So we try to make sure that we never, ever underestimate the fact that data works as a currency in the market and as an asset that can be a real barrier for competition.
韦斯塔格尔:是的,这确实是一大挑战 因为我们必须让我们的工具更先进 并同时开发新的工具 在处理谷歌对我们 反对声明的回应时 总共经手了5.2兆兆字节的数据 十分庞大 所以,我们必须设立新系统 我们必须找出办法 因为你无法以几年前的方式运作 所以我们必须精进工作的方式 另一件事是,我们试着分辨 不同种类的数据 因为有些数据非常可贵 会形成进入市场的阻碍 其他一些数据 - 隔了一天就没价值了 所以我们确保 我们知道 数据就如市场中的货币 也可能是阻碍竞争的资产
BG: Google. You fined them 2.8 billion euros a few months ago.
吉萨尼:您几个月前罚款谷歌28亿欧元
MV: No, that was dollars. It's not so strong these days.
韦斯塔格尔:不,是美元 美元最近不怎么强势
BG: Ah, well, depends on the --
吉萨尼:呃,是根据 -
(Laughter)
(笑声)
Google appealed the case. The case is going to court. It will last a while. Earlier, last year, you asked Apple to pay 13 billion in back taxes, and you have also investigated other companies, including European and Russian companies, not only American companies, by far. Yet the investigations against the American companies are the ones that have attracted the most attention and they have also attracted some accusations. You have been accused, essentially, of protectionism, of jealousy, or using legislation to hit back at American companies that have conquered European markets. "The Economist" just this week on the front page writes, "Vestager Versus The Valley." How do you react to that?
谷歌上诉了,所以这个案子会上法庭 会花一些时间 去年早些时候,您向苹果索取130亿的退税 您也调查了其他公司 包括欧洲和俄罗斯的公司 不单只有美国的公司 然而,针对美国公司的调查 最引人注目 同时也引来一些指控 您被指控施行保护主义,嫉妒 以法律来攻击征服欧洲市场的 美国公司 “经济学人”本周的头版写道 “韦斯塔格尔 vs 硅谷” 您如何回应?
MV: Well, first of all, I take it very seriously, because bias has no room in law enforcement. We have to prove our cases with the evidence and the facts and the jurisprudence in order also to present it to the courts. The second thing is that Europe is open for business, but not for tax evasion.
韦斯塔格尔:首先,我很严肃看待这事 因为执法是容不下偏见的 我们必须以证据,事实和法律体系 来证明我们的案子 以便陈给法庭 第二,欧洲是开放市场 而不是避税所
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(掌声)
The thing is that we are changing, and for instance, when I ask my daughters -- they use Google as well -- "Why do you do that?" They say, "Well, because it works. It's a very good product." They would never, ever, come up with the answer, "It's because it's a US product." It's just because it works. And that is of course how it should be. But just the same, it is important that someone is looking after to say, "Well, we congratulate you while you grow and grow and grow, but congratulation stops if we find that you're misusing your position to harm competitors so that they cannot serve consumers."
重点是,我们不断在改变 举个例子,我问我女儿 - 她们也用谷歌 - “你们为什么用它?” 她们说,“因为它好用啊,是很好的产品” 她们不会这样回答: “因为这是美国的产品” 只是因为这个产品好用 当然,原本就该是这样的 同样的,关注你的人说以下的话也很重要 “当你不断成长时“ ”我们恭喜你“ ”但若我们发现你利用职权“ ”去伤害其他竞争者,不让他们服务消费者时“ ”恭贺就会停止“
BG: It will be a fascinating case to follow. Thank you for coming to TED.
吉萨尼:这会是个有趣的例子 谢谢您来TED演讲
MV: It was a pleasure. Thanks a lot.
韦斯塔格尔:这是我的荣幸,谢谢
(Applause)
(掌声)