From Borgen to Brussels: Who is the new EU competition commissioner?

When Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning Schmidt was touted as the next EU council chief, comparisons with Denmark's popular political tv series Borgen abounded.

Borgen's main character Birgitte Nyborg is a hands-on, centrist politician, who in the series became the first female Prime Minister of Denmark, only to be copied by reality a year later, in 2011, when Thorning Schmidt was elected head of government. But the real inspiration for Nyborg did not come from the blonde politician ...