I AM MONTI'S BATMAN: The E.U.'s competition directorate is widely criticized, and Philip Lowe is its designated listener
Back in the days before European economic integration and the process known as globalization had taken hold, figuring out who called the shots was relatively straightforward: national governments and the civil servants who worked for them. These days, power is far more diffuse. A banker in Frankfurt can make interest-rate decisions that profoundly affect a businessman in Barcelona. A bureaucrat in Brussels can destroy a huge merger between two French even American companies.
So who are the people with influence in this new world? Behind the politicians who like to take the credit is an élite...
