Europe’s antitrust enforcer Margrethe Vestager mulls her legacy after taking on Silicon Valley

AS I ARRIVE TO MEET MARGRETHE VESTAGER, she is bounding down the long corridor outside her Brussels office toward a group of German teenagers just leaving her office. “I forgot to offer you these!” Europe’s Competition Commissioner says, handing them a box of chocolate-covered licorice from her hometown of Copenhagen. “You have to try this.” As she races back to her office, one student gazes after her. “Wow,” she says, through a mouthful of licorice. “She’s amazing.”

There are few European Union officials whom jaded teenagers would ever want to meet, let alone gush over. But Vestager, Denmark’s former Deputy Prime Minister, has grown used to getting strong reactions from people, not all as positive.

Four years after being appointed to one of the E.U.’s more controversial positions,