Margarete Vestager made the announcement on the morning of Wednesday, July 19 ” unfortunately “ that Fiona Scott Morton was stepping down as Chief Economist for the Directorate General of Competition. The vice president of the authority posted on Twitter a message from a teacher at Yale University, who specializes in issues of industrial organization. This one conjures up “political controversy” who accompanied his appointment on July 11 and pts Full support from the European Union. (EU) that he would miss to carry out his mission within the antitrust arm of the Community Executive, which is responsible for investigating anti-competitive behavior of companies, authorizing mergers and acquisitions, as well as validating state aid from various governments.
While European civil servants must be citizens of an EU member state, Fiona Scott Morton has benefited from an extremely rare, hitherto unused exception for a position of this level. If her skills have not been called into question—many famous economists, including Nobel laureate Jean Tyrol, have extolled her merits in recent days—then the fact that she is American raises questions. Especially since the European Union has just adopted a new digital regulation mainly related to Gafam (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft). The appointment of Fiona Scott Morton also sparked numerous criticisms related to the conflict of interest she raised, while she was a consultant for companies such as Microsoft, Apple, Amazon or Pfizer.
Tuesday was undoubtedly decisive in this case. Several European commissioners, including France’s Thierry Breton, Italian Paolo Gentiloni, Spain’s Josep Borrell, Luxembourger Nicholas Schmidt and Portugal’s Elisa Ferreira, have written to Ursula von der Leyen, the commission’s president, to ask her to reconsider her decision. Three or four others preferred not to sign, but intended to raise the issue on Wednesday. During the last meeting of commissioners scheduled before the summer recess, a European diplomat explains. Including, in particular, the Belgian Didier Reynders and the Austrian Johannes Hahn.
French reaction
Emmanuel Macron, who was in Brussels on Tuesday for the Council of the European Union and Latin America, took the opportunity to convince some of his counterparts of the need for action. The president who said it himself “Doubtful” About the appointment of Fiona Scott Morton there was a clear hearing, otherwise the protesting commissioners would not have taken the initiative to take up the pen to express their abstention from Ursula von der Leyen.
You have 54.03% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.
