The professional CVs of Pierre Régibeau and Fiona Scott Morton are not fundamentally different. Both are economists, both have studied and researched at renowned American universities – Berkeley, MIT, Stanford, Yale. Both are recognized experts in industrial policy, antitrust law and trade. As is usual, both have turned their expertise into money and advised large corporations on competition proceedings. Régibeau has worked on cases involving Microsoft, Fiona Scott Morton has helped Amazon and Apple.
There is one important difference though – the passport. Régibeau is Belgian, Fiona Scott Morton is American. And that’s why she won’t get the job he currently holds: chief economist at “DG Competition”, the extremely powerful competition authority of the EU Commission, which decides on company mergers and all sorts of other business-related things in Europe. Scott Morton wrote on Wednesday to the competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager, who wanted to hire her, that she was stepping down from the post she was being offered. That, Scott Morton wrote, is probably the best solution, given “the controversy” her appointment has sparked.
Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager received a letter from Fiona Scott Morton in which she wrote that she was resigning from the post that had been intended for her.
(Photo: JOHANNA GERON/REUTERS)
Now, “controversy” is a cute word for what happened. “Outcry” would be more appropriate or “revolt”. An American in one of the most important economic policy posts in the EU? And one that worked for American big-tech octopuses, which she would have a say in regulating in her new position? Mon Dieu, it rang out from Paris. French President Emmanuel Macron led the resistance. The European Parliament wrote an outraged letter to the EU Commission. Only the German Greens did not sign because they felt the reduction of an applicant to the passport was strange. But even some commissioners wrote to their President Ursula von der Leyen to appeal to the personnel change.
The interpretations of why this personality was so controversial are interesting
Before the dispute could escalate further, Scott Morton pulled the emergency brake. The mood was poisoned anyway, successful work was out of the question. And why should a successful academic, who certainly earns quite a bit of extra money as a consultant, expose herself to this archaic inner-European bickering between governments and institutions?
Of course, the interpretations are interesting Why the personality was so controversial. Vestager must have been aware that filling a high-ranking EU post with a non-EU citizen is unusual and politically sensitive. Some observers accuse the Dane of being sloppy. They should have coordinated more closely with Paris in advance, they say.
Other people, on the other hand, see Scott Morton more as a collateral victim of Macron’s push for “strategic autonomy” from the EU – that is, more independence from America. Strategic autonomy also includes “autonomy of thought,” said the French President on Tuesday. In his opinion, a Yale professor who is also an American citizen is obviously not able to do this. Macron said he was “skeptical” about the appointment and it was “extremely worrying” that Vestager could not find any European candidates with similar qualifications.
Finally, a third interpretation sees the German Commission President Ursula von der Leyen as the true goal of the excitement. Her very close relationship with the US government and President Joe Biden is a thorn in the side of some EU countries, especially those who want more distance from Washington in European politics towards China. According to this interpretation, denying an American a post in Brussels would be a shot in the bow of von der Leyen.