Entrevista con Arianna Podestà, portavoz de la Comisión Europea para la competencia (en inglés)

Hoy os traemos una entrevista muy especial, que llevo persiguiendo desde el año pasado. Se trata de una charla con la (nada menos) portavoz de la Comisión Europea para lo competencia. Dicho de otra forma, los que ponen las multas. Como sabéis, Apple está bajo la lupa de la Comisión por sus presuntas prácticas anticompetitivas y una de las opciones que se barajan es obligar a Apple a permitir que se puedan comprar y descargar aplicaciones para sus dispositivos desde tiendas de terceros. Así que pensé que sería muy interesante conocer cómo funciona esta comisión, como planifican el trabajo y cual es el proceso que se sigue para investigar si existen malas prácticas por parte de alguna empresa. Para vuestra información, incluyo un gráfico con las áreas que abarcan y los logros conseguidos. Por supuesto, una vez establecido el marco, nos centramos en los temas de Apple, como la App Store, los libros, etc. Según nos comunicó Arianna en un correo posterior, Apple respondió con sus alegaciones a las objeciones de la Comision sobre la App Store en Septiembre de 2021. Según la propia Arianna, como hacen habitualmente, la Comisión está estudiando detenidamente la respuesta que Apple ha dado. Por si os ayuda, pego aquí debajo la transcripción de la entrevista.   Pido perdón por adelantado por mi inglés de acento ibérico.. al menos ella me entendió. Espero que vosotros me disculpéis. ___ Alf Hi Arianna, you are both the European Commission’s Spokeperson for competition and for Eurostat. But I don't think Eurostat makes many news at all, does it?   Arianna Podesta   No, Eurostat produces really a lot of statistics, clearly, and a lot of information. But usually, the information that comes from us feeds into the press releases of my colleagues following specific thematic areas in the Spokesperson’s Service of the Commission.    So usually, if you want to have information on employment, that will be the employment spokesperson that deals with that topic, or you have, I don't know, information on hotel occupancy, then it's the spokesperson that deals with tourism and internal market that will usually use those figures in her communication.    So for me, it's really the questions that relate to your stats, working choices how the about statistics are calculated, etc. But indeed, I mean, the vast majority of what I do is competition related. Yes.   Alf   So, as we've spoken on the emails, the main idea is to get a glance of how the Competition Commission works, and how an investigation starts. And then, in the end, I would like to go a bit in detail about the tech competition investigations, specifically about Apple on the App Store and the payments and so on.    Arianna Podesta   Yeah, of course. I mean, I'm very happy to try to answer all of your questions. I hope I have all the all the answers. And indeed, if there's anything I cannot do not know or I cannot say, I will just tell you that I cannot say but I will always try to provide you as much context or process information as I can.   Alf   Okay, because it's not very often that you do these kind of interviews. Is that right? am I the lucky one?   Arianna Podesta   One, Yyou're one of the few lucky ones. Meaning that we are quite restricted in terms of what we can say, especially on ongoing cases.    I think it's understandable because the matters we deal with are so market sensitive.    Of course, what we what we do affects companies. So I talked to a lot of your colleagues, but usually, it's majority of time on background, which means we have a very informal testexchange.    I, you know, explain the context, but you won't quote or you won't use it directly in your articles. Is more to give the context and there, it's a bit easier to pass, you know, messages and to say where we stand oin things.   I have limits, clearly, as far as interviews go. Because whenever we have an important case, or an important decision, or an important piece of legislation, usually we have the Eex