Laying down the law thickens your skin
Last week, Mario Monti was told that he would no longer be a European commissioner after his term ends in October. The Italian government’s announcement will end a decade-long career that culminated in his appointment as competition commissioner five years ago. His tenure in a post widely regarded as the most powerful in Brussels was marked by controversy, fierce battles with national capitals and crackdowns on some of the most powerful companies in the world. The 61-year old has laid down the law to the likes of Jack Welch and Steve Ballmer, the past and present chiefs of General Electric and Microsoft, as well as Nicolas Sarkozy and Hans Eichel, France and Germany’s finance ministers. While he has often won respect for his tough stance against cartels, monopolies and subsidies, the commissioner has also been subjected to fierce attacks. Yet in a recent wide-ranging two-hour interview with the Financial Times, Mr Monti said such encounters had only served to thicken his skin. At the same time, he admitted to being troubled by his biggest cases of the last year - his �497m ($601m) fine for Microsoft and the battle over a government-backed bail-out for Alstom. “In the end, when I took the [Microsoft] decision I was not sure at all whether it would not have hugely adverse implications for international co-operation,” he says, referring to a possible backlash in the US. “But in the end reactions were more moderate than in the GE case.” Alstom was another test of wills last year - France wanted to take a shareholding without European Commission approval, arguing that otherwise private creditors would pull out. “You are not at ease if you think you are really the source of a bankruptcy of great proportions,” Mr Monti says in his understated way. “But then I convinced myself that the banks will stay on board. This was the case. It went well [but] there is . . . an element of a bet in these decisions.” He seems puzzled when asked how he relaxes after such momentous decisions. “For every year, for 30 years, I take at least one sleeping pill [a day],” he reveals. “But the dose is totally constant, it’s irrespective of the pleasures or grievances of the day.” Grievances have, however, been felt in Paris, where he is sometimes criticised as an “ultra-liberal”. He says such attacks are part and parcel of his job, and points out that the verbal barrages have come from both left and right. Mr Monti points out that, in principle, competition policy “cuts across ideology”, though he adds that “antitrust is more susceptible to political cycles in the US than in Europe” - a comment some might see as his privately held view on the Bush administration’s attitude to big companies. All the same, Mr Monti argues that what he calls the “European model” will have to change. “My point is that for Europe to be able to keep some parts of its social model, it simply has to become more and more similar to the US in its own domestic economic structure more liberal, more efficient, more productive, more competitive.” Only by proving that Europe can deliver higher economic growth can it regain what Mr Monti calls “a place in the sun” - a place from which the EU can credibly and forcefully advocate its preference for social protection and a multilateral approach to solving global issues - in his view the two hallmarks of the European model. “Not to become superseded, we must avoid shrinking economically,” he says. Mr Monti, a self-controlled and cautious man, admits that his calm has sometimes misled executives. As someone who is “normally polite, rather dull and unexpressive [I] may have generated the misperception that after all, in the end, I would agree on the substance. Maybe I should have used body language more, but I am not good at it.” He spends much of his time reading the press - he devours five papers a day as well as Google’s news service. Yet despite this habit, and his long experience in the public arena, he sometimes appears strangely unaccustomed to media attention. He says he felt violated when, shortly after he became commissioner, an Italian paper published a story unrelated to him but used his picture. He also says that the attack that hurt him most was an article in the Financial Times that suggested his resignation (though, rather sweetly, he apologises for this admission just before we depart). Mr Monti has worked as a journalist. For 16 years, while he was professor at Italy’s elite Bocconi university, he wrote a column for Corriere della Sera, the Italian daily. Mr Monti says he used it to preach the benefits of free markets at a time when “not only in Italy you had crystallised, ossified and largely government-dominated systems”. He would not do so today. “I don’t think the intellectual cause for free markets and open borders has to be made, because it has been largely sanctified and institutionalised - from the World Trade Organisation to the EU. The issue that requires intellectual effort today is the governance of globalisation.” Nonetheless, faster than one can say “French industrial policy” the commissioner admits that Paris is a special case. “You may have particular cases and unusually interesting exceptions like France, where there is an intellectual case to be made. But I think this is an exception now,” he argues. Still, he favourably contrasts France’s “very serious intellectual debate about industrial policy” with Germany’s more “defensive reflex”. When Mr Monti talks about France, he sounds like a disappointed teacher speaking about a bright but unruly pupil. He applauds France’s industrial achievements such as the TGV high-speed train and its contribution to Airbus, and he says he respects France’s mercantilist heritage. But he urges the French “to have more trust in themselves, and less distrust in Europe”. “More trust in themselves because they have in recent years put together the highest number of industrial restructurings and not just defensive ones but also in order to constructively build effective champions,” Mr Monti says. More trust in Europe, he adds, because Brussels has given its blessing to the vast majority of these deals. The talk turns to Italian politics - a topic that Mr Monti is uniquely placed to comment upon. Earlier this month, Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi offered him the job of finance minister, which Mr Monti declined. Is he an Italian patriot? “I like being an Italian,” comes the cautious reply. “I feel Italian. But of course I don’t see any conflict at all between feeling Italian and feeling European. “In a sense, the best way to serve a country’s national interest - and certainly for a country like Italy - is to help the progress of European construction”.
发号施令让我脸皮更厚
上星期，马里奥?蒙蒂(Mario Monti)被告知，今年10月他的任期结束后，他将不再是欧洲竞争事务专员。
意大利政府的这一宣告，将结束蒙蒂先生长达10年的欧盟职业生涯，五年前他被任命为竞争事务专员时，他的职业生涯达到了顶峰。在这个被广泛认为是欧盟权力最大的职位上，他经历了多起事件：各项论争、与各成员国政府的激烈交锋、以及打击一些世界上最强势的企业。
61岁的蒙蒂先生曾对通用电气(General Electric)前首席执行官杰克?韦尔奇(Jack Welch)、微软公司(Microsoft)现任首席执行官史蒂夫?巴尔默(Steve Ballmer)、法国财政部长尼古拉斯?萨尔科奇(Nicolas Sarkozy)和德国财长汉斯?艾歇尔(Hans Eichel)等大人物发号施令。
他对卡特尔(cartel)、垄断和补贴的强硬姿态，常常赢得人们的尊敬，但也遭到了另一些人的猛烈抨击。
不过，在近期接受《金融时报》的两小时深入采访时，蒙蒂先生表示，此类遭遇只是让他的脸皮厚了起来。
但他承认，去年最大的几桩案子令他忧虑，即他对微软公司开出的4.97亿欧元(合6.01亿美元)罚单，以及围绕由法国政府支持的阿尔斯通(Alstom) 拯救方案的交锋。
他说：“最终，在我做出针对微软的决定之际，对于这一决定是否会对国际合作产生巨大的负面影响，我一点也没有把握。”他指的是美国可能做出的对抗，“但最后，美国的反应比在通用电气(GE)案 (编者注：指欧盟于2001年阻止通用电气公司收购霍尼韦尔国际公司)中更为温和。”
阿尔斯通是去年的又一次意志考验。法国政府想在未经欧洲委员会批准的情况下买下部分股权，声称否则私人债权方就将退出。
蒙蒂先生用他含蓄的方式说道：“当你想到自己是一宗巨大破产事件真正的始作俑者时，你不会感到轻松。但我使自己确信，那些银行将继续提供支持。结果正是这样。事情发展得很顺当，(但)这些决定中有……某种赌博的成分。”
当被问及在做出如此重大的决定后，他如何放松下来时，他显得有些迷茫。“30年来，我(每天)至少吃一片安眠药，”他透露，“但这一剂量完全是固定的，不管当天是开心还是不满。”
不过，巴黎的情绪却只有不满。蒙蒂先生在那里有时会被批评为一个“极端自由主义分子”。他表示，这样的攻击对他的工作来说有如家常便饭，并指出，左派和右派都会对他有微词。
蒙蒂先生指出，原则上，竞争政策“超越意识形态”，但他补充说，“与欧洲相比，美国的反垄断更容易受到政治周期的影响”。也许，这正是他私下对布什政府对大公司的态度所持的看法。
尽管如此，蒙蒂先生争辩说，他所称的“欧洲模式”必须改变。
“我的观点是，欧洲若要保持其社会模式中的某些部分，就必须使自身的国内经济结构逐渐向美国模式靠拢，做到更自由、更有效率、更富有成效，更有竞争力。”
欧洲只有证明自己能够实现更高的经济增长，才能重新占据蒙蒂先生所称的“阳光下的一席之地”，让欧盟令人信服并强有力地倡导他心目中欧洲模式的两大特点：一是重视社会保障，二是采用多边方式来解决全球问题。
他表示：“为了不被淘汰，我们必须避免经济收缩。”
蒙蒂先生是一个自律而谨慎的人，他承认，有时他的平静令企业主管产生误解。作为一个“一般很有礼貌、相当呆板并缺乏表现力的人，(我）可能会令人产生这样一种错觉：我最终会同意实质问题。也许我应该更多地使用肢体语言，但我不擅长于此。”
他平时花大量时间阅读报刊，每天要猛看五份报纸以及Google的新闻服务。然而，尽管有这种习惯，还有长期在公共舞台上的经验，但奇怪的是，有时候他对媒体的关注似乎不自在。
他说，在他刚刚担任竞争专员后不久，一家意大利报纸在一篇与他无关的文章中配发了他的照片，这使他觉得受到了侵犯。他还说，对他伤害最大的攻击，莫过于《金融时报》上的一篇文章，该文建议他辞职(不过，在我们告别时，他相当亲切地为指出这一点而道了歉)。
蒙蒂先生曾是一位记者。他在意大利名校博科尼(Bocconi)大学担任教授期间，为意大利日报《晚邮报》(Corriere della Sera)写了16年的专栏。蒙蒂先生说，他用这一机会宣传自由市场的益处，而当时“不仅只有意大利才有具体、僵化并主要由政府主导的体系”。
但换在今天他就不会这么做了。“我认为，没有必要再为自由市场和开放边界进行论证了，因为从世贸组织到欧盟，这一点已基本上得到普遍接受和制度化了。当今需要加大理论研究力度的课题，是对全球化的治理。”
不过，还没等人说出“法国工业政策”，这位专员就已经承认法国是个特例。他认为：“或许存在特例和特别有趣的例外，比如法国，可以从理论上总结出一个范例。但我认为如今这只是一个例外。”
不过，相比德国更为“出于防御本能的条件反射”，他还是更看好法国“关于工业政策的十分严肃的理智辩论”。
当蒙蒂先生谈论起法国时，就像一个失望的教师在谈论一位聪明但不服管教的小学生。他称赞法国取得的工业成就，如TGV高速列车和法国对空中客车(Airbus)的贡献，他还尊重法国的重商主义传统。但他敦促法国人要“既更多地信任自己，也减少对欧洲的不信任”。
蒙蒂先生表示：“之所以要更多地信任自己，是因为他们在最近几年里完成了最多数量的工业重组，不仅是防御性重组，而且还为建设性地打造有效的冠军企业而重组。”他接着说，之所以要增加对欧洲的信任，是因为欧盟已批准了这些交易中的绝大部分。
话题转向了意大利政治。蒙蒂先生有独特的资格对这个话题发表评论。7月早些时候，意大利总理西尔维奥?贝鲁斯科尼(Silvio Berlusconi)提议让他担任财长一职，但他谢绝了。
他是位意大利爱国者吗？他谨慎地回答道：“我喜欢当意大利人。我觉得自己具有意大利人的情怀。当然，我不认为既是意大利人，又是欧洲人的感觉自相矛盾。”
“在某种程度上说，服务于国家利益(当然也包括像意大利这样的国家）的最好途径，是帮助推进欧洲的建设。
