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The European Commission comes out weakened by the episode of the aborted appointment of the American to the Directorate General for Competition.
By renouncing, on July 19, to occupy the post of chief economist of the Directorate-General for Competition, the American Fiona Scott Morton put an end to a crisis which had been growing since her surprise appointment by the Commission, on July 11. But the aftershocks of the political fault committed by the German Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the Commission, and the Dane Margrethe Vestager, the Commissioner for Competition, will be felt for a long time.
These two women are, in fact, permanently weakened. They hoped that the unprecedented appointment of an American to occupy a sensitive position within the European executive would go unnoticed in the heart of the summer holidays. To ensure that this would not produce waves, they should not have concealed her nationality from the college of twenty-seven commissioners, who discovered her on Twitter, and above all, tested the Member States to avoid disappointment. Indeed, if the Commission is sovereign to appoint its personnel, it always takes care to respect national and political balances. Suffice to say that Vestager and Von der Leyen showed political indigence and showed how cut off they were from national realities.
Shaken confidence
This sad palinodie will complicate the task of Vestag