Chillin'Competition

The European Commission held an inauguration ceremony of memorial plinth for Karel VAN MIERT, former European Competition Commissioner. A video of the ceremony is available here.  I met him once, at a conference organized by the revue Concurrences three years ago. My impression: his reputation as  someone who spoke his mind was not a myth. During the conference, VAN MIERT delivered a tough, vibrant speech against the State-sponsored industrial policy ethos.

As most readers know VAN MIERT was a flemish Belgian (read dutch-speaking). Yet, it seems that most of the ceremony took place in French (see the speeches of Barroso and Almunia).  Quite funny, at a time where the country hosting the Commission is on the verge of linguistic explosion.