risparmier
Forumer storico
: November 13, 2011
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Mr. Monti, 68, is as much an outsider to Rome’s political palazzi as he is at home in Milan, where he taught political economy and is president of Bocconi University. He is also at home in Brussels, where he spent more than a decade as a member of the European Commission, first for the internal market and then for competition.
“He was really shaped by the two portfolios he held at the Commission, which are the fundamental pillars of the E.U.,” said Jean Pisani-Ferry, the director of Bruegel, an economics research institute in Brussels. Mr. Monti was Bruegel’s first chairman and is now its honorary president.
Mr. Monti’s tenure as commissioner for competition coincided with an eventful time in European Union antitrust enforcement and control of market concentrations. He also worked with United States authorities to create the International Competition Network.
He blocked the $42 billion merger of General Electric and Honeywell and fined Microsoft $650 million for antitrust violations. He also ordered seven German regional public banks to repay more than 3 billion euro in illegal subsidies they received from their regional governments in the 1990s.
“He was not afraid to take on iconic businesspeople like Jack Welch,” General Electric’s former chief executive, said Nicholas Levy, an antitrust lawyer at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, who dealt with Mr. Monti on several occasions, and remembered him as “extraordinarily courteous, and a good listener who approached his job with care for the subject matter,” paying attention to details and understanding the facts.
After the General Electric decision, The Economist magazine published an article saying, “Many American businessmen have regarded Mario Monti as the corporate equivalent of Saddam Hussein.”
A series of court rulings overturned three of Mr. Monti’s other merger decisions, but his response, Mr. Levy said, “served as a catalyst for change, and formed the basis of his legacy.” He enlisted the help of economists as well as lawyers to help shape the regulations to guide the competition commission.
Italians can expect Mr. Monti to act in support of market integration, which he believes will make Italy — and the European Union — more resilient to crises. “He holds that the monetary union has to be based on market integration, openly competing within the euro single market,” Mr. Pisani-Ferry said.
They can also expect Mr. Monti to push for the reform-minded agenda demanded by the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank to make Italy more competitive, and spur the growth that has eluded it in the past decade. Those reforms would include enforcing — and possibly strengthening — measures passed by the Italian Parliament on Saturday that aim to eliminate some structural obstacles to Italian competitiveness, like cumbersome red tape or its entrenched professional guilds.
Though his last official post in Brussels dates to 2004, he remains linked to the city through various organizations like Bruegel, and the Reflection Group, which was established by the European Council to examine long-term issues facing the European Union.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/14/w...-leader-faces-uphill-fight.html?_r=1&src=recg
....
Mr. Monti, 68, is as much an outsider to Rome’s political palazzi as he is at home in Milan, where he taught political economy and is president of Bocconi University. He is also at home in Brussels, where he spent more than a decade as a member of the European Commission, first for the internal market and then for competition.
“He was really shaped by the two portfolios he held at the Commission, which are the fundamental pillars of the E.U.,” said Jean Pisani-Ferry, the director of Bruegel, an economics research institute in Brussels. Mr. Monti was Bruegel’s first chairman and is now its honorary president.
Mr. Monti’s tenure as commissioner for competition coincided with an eventful time in European Union antitrust enforcement and control of market concentrations. He also worked with United States authorities to create the International Competition Network.
He blocked the $42 billion merger of General Electric and Honeywell and fined Microsoft $650 million for antitrust violations. He also ordered seven German regional public banks to repay more than 3 billion euro in illegal subsidies they received from their regional governments in the 1990s.
“He was not afraid to take on iconic businesspeople like Jack Welch,” General Electric’s former chief executive, said Nicholas Levy, an antitrust lawyer at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, who dealt with Mr. Monti on several occasions, and remembered him as “extraordinarily courteous, and a good listener who approached his job with care for the subject matter,” paying attention to details and understanding the facts.
After the General Electric decision, The Economist magazine published an article saying, “Many American businessmen have regarded Mario Monti as the corporate equivalent of Saddam Hussein.”
A series of court rulings overturned three of Mr. Monti’s other merger decisions, but his response, Mr. Levy said, “served as a catalyst for change, and formed the basis of his legacy.” He enlisted the help of economists as well as lawyers to help shape the regulations to guide the competition commission.
Italians can expect Mr. Monti to act in support of market integration, which he believes will make Italy — and the European Union — more resilient to crises. “He holds that the monetary union has to be based on market integration, openly competing within the euro single market,” Mr. Pisani-Ferry said.
They can also expect Mr. Monti to push for the reform-minded agenda demanded by the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank to make Italy more competitive, and spur the growth that has eluded it in the past decade. Those reforms would include enforcing — and possibly strengthening — measures passed by the Italian Parliament on Saturday that aim to eliminate some structural obstacles to Italian competitiveness, like cumbersome red tape or its entrenched professional guilds.
Though his last official post in Brussels dates to 2004, he remains linked to the city through various organizations like Bruegel, and the Reflection Group, which was established by the European Council to examine long-term issues facing the European Union.
....
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/14/w...-leader-faces-uphill-fight.html?_r=1&src=recg
