Margrethe Vestager: "You can't train the mini boys in football, go to mindfulness and see the in-laws on weekends if you want to solve crazy problems."

Sigge Winther Nielsen visits Margrethe Vestager at her office in central Copenhagen. Why is it so difficult to tackle wild problems in Danish democracy, Sigge asks. The problems have grown up, Vestager replies, and you have to look in surprising places to find the solutions.

"There is no light behind us," Vestager says dramatically as I enter her office in central Copenhagen. And she's right, it's dark and wet outside the windows behind us, as if we've witnessed a gloomy winter rain in 19th century industrialized northern England.

I get coffee as dark as a witch's brew and we jump straight into it. Because it's clear that Vestager has thought things through.

"Danish democracy has the right chain from politicians to civil servants and on to citizens and businesses - but there are too many breaks in that chain today. So the individual no longer thinks it's relevant to me - and then says 'I can't relate to it' and then asks 'what expectations are there for how I should act?

- Why is that?

"We have a lot of framework legislation in place for climate neutrality, for example - but I don't feel that people have discovered it and know what to do themselves. And we actually have stronger contact with the business community than with states and municipalities. And that's a paradox."

- I'll try a question from the journalistic Stone Age: "What are the consequences?"

"So when the chain wears out, we lose implementation power. And that's the problem. And then the citizen loses courage when you look into the chain - there may well be some sensible things going on, 'I don't know the details, but I don't know where my role is' the citizen then says, 'and what I can certainly see is that what's going on is not having an effect'."

- But why is it so difficult to create results on the wild problems in Danish democracy today?

"I think it's a bit like children - when they're young, you hold them close to you and you've solved their problems. But when children grow up, they get a reach where you can't just pick up the problem and solve it. You can't deal with it. They live their own lives. And then you become worried and powerless. That's happening right now with a lot of our problems. They've grown up."

- But now that we know that, why don't we act on that insight?

"Because often politicians or officials take the lid off to see if it boils. And it still doesn't. And then you don't consider whether you've turned on the flame. There is no follow-up on implementation. We get an advertising policy. It's not important whether it can be done. It's very hard to get a majority in Denmark - but also in many Western parliaments - so in many places there is no follow-up on whether it can be done in reality. You just move on to gathering the next majority."

- So lots of reforms and legislation are passed. But why does this classic policy go wrong when faced with wild problems?

"Many people don't realize that most people don't like change. Maybe only the change they impose on others. If some people can only change the climate if it looks like a steak - that's fine with me - but we must insist on changing society. We simply have to be smarter in the way we do it to get people on board with change."

Vestager looks out at the rain and then continues:

"What's difficult is to have a collaborative process where you agree on what the problems are, rank the problems, and understand how the problems interact with each other."

She looks at me intently and then says:

"Today, we haven't taken stock of the problems we're dealing with right now - inflation, recruitment to the public sector, dissatisfaction among young people. Or take the climate problem, it's still being solved from so many angles in Western countries, so you can't just have one climate ministry as we know it. Instead, you need to have a cross-cutting organization. You have to put the problem first and then organize yourself according to what it takes to solve it. And then you need to have a greater tolerance for slippage. We will make mistakes when we throw ourselves into these wild problems."

- Today you are in the EU - can national parliaments learn anything?

"The EU is not perfect, but we are much further ahead than national democracies in running processes and involving people." And then Vestager points to an example:

"Now we need to implement the Digital Market Act, where tech companies' market power must be combined with responsibility. So we can't do that with the staff we have here in the EU competition authority. We need more people and different skills. They say: it takes a village to raise a child. I translate that to it takes a community to secure compliance. We are building a community with national competition authorities, with organizations in the field and then the companies. We need to have a different view of what network or fabric it takes - otherwise it's not going to happen. Then it will just be a heavy trip with legislation and legal proceedings in the courts. And then it takes a long time again, and it's rarely really effective. Neither for citizens nor for companies."

- How could you shift gears in Denmark in general to achieve better implementation?

"First, you need to have a flatter structure at the top - not just a Ministry of Finance that is close to the Prime Minister. Secondly, you need to have large and strong task forces that can meet physically with group rooms and breakouts. So you don't want to create a new organization with HR and letterheads. It takes too much time. It doesn't work at all. We need to have the necessary volume. So we organize ourselves according to the problem and move people around to where we really want to succeed. We need to create this collaborative space; it could be in the old National Archives right across from the parliament."

"Thirdly, before the government is formed, you should prioritize the problems - both national and local. And then you should organize yourself into partnerships around the problems you have selected to engage the outside world in problem solving."

"Finally, fourthly, we need to have a quota for how much legislation we can make. It should force us to think creatively in other tools."

- I think of an earlier interview for the INVI newsletter with the German Vice Chancellor, where it was even clearer that in Germany they see laws as the only way to bring about change. Vestager interrupts my train of thought and gives an example:

"You can't train the mini boys in football, go to mindfulness and see the in-laws on weekends if you want to solve wild problems. We can't leave it to the politicians, because there aren't that many of them left and there aren't that many party members either. So we need to engage the outside world in a new way. There is often not (i) scale, (ii) focus and (iii) implementation power in the political initiatives that are launched. The moment you get those three forces synchronized, a tremendous energy is unleashed in the outside world."

- But how do you get citizens, foundations, businesses and civil society on board?

"We need to renew the social contract. So everyone who has members must be more involved. Because the parties are getting smaller all the time. Others need to help spread knowledge and politics out into society. The person who goes swimming and goes to work and picks up children. She needs to be involved too. Because she has to sort her rubbish, have a car share, the food has to be more plant-based, and over at the swimming pool there

solar panels on the roof to make the water nice to be in. So she can't just give a mandate to politicians and officials and say 'I'm busy' - you fix it. Because everything she's busy with has to change in the coming years. And she has to be part of changing behavior herself."

- So it's about the individual person you started with not seeing their contribution to the big democratic machine. How can you help the swimming pool lady with that?

"Today, we can gather a lot of data and make it available quickly. And I think we can create more successful initiatives by asking people along the way how the reforms should be adjusted. We can't always push a big reform from the center of power and expect people to follow it. We need to build, learn and test - and then involve people in how it progresses. This requires a huge transformation of the political-administrative systems. What I'm saying here will sound like science fiction in many Western countries."

- This is precisely the piece of science fiction INVI is trying to work out right now with a new model. But the democratic systems we've painstakingly built - which have been brilliant at solving many tame problems - have also become more rigid. So how can you get the public sector onto this new science fiction frequency to tackle the wild problems?

"Maybe that's making it very down to earth. But I almost always wear a dress. Because there's a lot of uniforming in politics with suits. So that's why I say to my male colleagues. 'Oh, you've coordinated outfits again,' and they look at me. They don't get the joke. They don't think it's a uniform because they have different political views, but of course it's a uniform when the outside world is looking at them," says Vestager and elaborates on her point:

"But one of the sources of the problems in our Western political systems is that uniformity on the outside leads to uniformity on the inside - and then you accept the structures that are there. My tiny little dress contribution here is an attempt to be more personal. Because the personal is interesting; what's at stake for you personally - why are you doing this."

- Try to give an example of how it can create change?

"Specifically, I quit smoking. There are plenty of good reasons for that, with pamphlets about mortality and ugly pictures on cigarette packs. But the reason I quit smoking was that my husband said 'I love you and want you here for as long as possible'. This is how knowledge travels in personal chains and becomes relevant. Knowledge only becomes useful when there is an emotional connection to it. And you can't get that politically if you're in a uniform. Because you haven't put anything at stake."

- So are you really a pessimist about Denmark and the Western democracies?

"I like to get something at hand, and I don't think pessimists do. But I am very concerned. And when we see that we've had the hottest summer in Siberia in 7000 years. It's crazy. It's just the tip of the iceberg. Or rather the tip of climate change."

Vestager takes her hands out to the side so that her dress is clearly visible:

"And what really worries me here is that the momentum is almost non-existent. Now that we have an energy crisis to give us that push, we don't have the capacity to do it. The systems are slow, the tradesmen aren't there, access to solar panels is difficult - and we are so sentimental in our relationship with the old world. But there is darkness behind us. Don't go back."