Art. - Interview with Johannes Laitenberger – a competition case handler who became Director-General

In September 2015, Johannes Laitenberger succeeded Alexander Italianer as Director-General of DG Competition. Almost exactly a year later, Mededingingsrecht in de Praktijk was pleased to interview Mr Laitenberger in his office, located on the 21st floor of the Madou tower. The room offered a magnificent birds-eye view over central Brussels under a late afternoon sun. A highly qualified and disarming individual, with a stellar career at the Commission, Mr. Laitenberger gave us an open and pleasant interview. Clearly, Europe has a big place in his heart. We discussed his private background and his current job. He talked about the internal functioning of DG Competition and its position, more broadly, within the Commission services. Finally, Mr Laitenberger also talked about substantive topics of current interest in the field of competition policy and enforcement.

1. Could you please tell us something about your personal background?

Well, for a start I suppose you could say that I am clearly a career official. I grew up in Germany and Portugal. I then studied law in Germany. I am, therefore, a German-qualified lawyer by training and passed the two German state exams. After a short period as a lawyer in the private sector, I started my career as an EU official in 1996. At the institutions, I started to work at the General Secretariat of the Council, and spent a few years there. In 1999, I moved to the Commission. I started at this Directorate-General, DG Competition, which was then still called DG IV. Here…