French hit job: How Macron took down an American in Europe

Politico has published an analysis stating that French fury pushed Fiona Scott Morton to quit before she even took up her top EU post. And it might derail Margrethe Vestager’s career, too. Caliber.Az reprints this article.

The appointment of EU bureaucrats is usually a tame affair. Then Brussels tried to make an American one of its most powerful economists. 

In a matter of mere days, the selection of US antitrust expert Fiona Scott Morton as the EU’s top competition economist has snowballed into a major geopolitical faux-pas that saw France launch a rearguard action against the EU and challenged the stature of one of Brussels’ highest-profile figures, Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager.   

On Wednesday, France won. After a week of campaigning, including a blistering public rebuke from President Emmanuel Macron, Scott Morton preemptively resigned. 

The climbdown marks a victory for Paris — and a steely reminder of the formidable power France wields within the EU. 

It also represents a potentially damaging setback for Vestager. Her ill-fated move to install Scott Morton comes as she is trying to win political support to become head of the European Investment Bank, the EU's lending arm. While France doesn’t have veto power over the job, its support is typically crucial. 

“Either way, she has been politically damaged, that’s for sure,” said one EU official, who like others spoke anonymously because of rules prohibiting public comments.

A ticking (bureaucratic) time bomb

While the whole Scott Morton affair appeared to have erupted over the course of just a few days, it was actually slowly building for months — it’s just that no one really noticed. 

The series of events can be traced back to early March, when the College of Commissioners — the grouping of the EU’s 27 commissioners, including Vestager — first discussed the appointment of a new chief competition economist ahead of the expected retirement of outgoing economist Pierre Régibeau. 

At that point, Vestager’s team announced that the rules requiring the candidate to be an EU citizen would be ditched. Officials close to the process insist that this was not a stitch-up to facilitate the appointment of Scott Morton, but essential to ensure the best pool of candidates. 

Within a few weeks, Scott Morton’s looming appointment was open knowledge. POLITICO reported the news in April. A group of NGOs also wrote to the European Commission, the EU’s executive, objecting to the proposed appointment. 

But it was not until the College of Commissioners met on July 11 and approved the appointment that France went into full panic mode. 

France’s EU commissioner, internal market chief Thierry Breton — who is known to have a tetchy relationship with Vestager — reacted with fury. He scrambled to build a coalition of support for the French scepticism, securing the signatures of five commissioners in a letter opposing the appointment.

The appointment of Scott Morton represents a potentially damaging setback for Vestager

The French concern was primarily one of nationality — putting an American in such a senior, and political, post was a no-no for Paris, particularly given Scott Morton’s work for Big Tech US firms in the past. 

The issue blew up into a huge domestic news story in France, with far-right leader Marine Le Pen and far-left chief Jean-Luc Mélenchon castigating Scott Morton’s appointment on Twitter.

“The far right and the far left have immediately seized the opportunity,” said a French official, who spoke anonymously due to rules against talking publicly. 

Macron finally weighed in on the matter at a summit in Brussels, slamming the appointment, effectively sealing the fate of Scott Morton. 

But while France ultimately got its way, multiple officials in Brussels expressed incredulity that French officials did not see the controversy coming — particularly given that senior officials for EU commissioners discussed the appointment before the commissioners themselves met on July 10. 

“They completely missed it,” said one Commission official who supports Scott Morton’s appointment and spoke anonymously because of rules prohibiting public comment on the matter. 

“Above all, it calls into question the political judgment of the College, including Mr Breton,” said a second EU official. “After all, it's a College that makes collegial decisions! Breton seems to have forgotten that, but was he gone to the bathroom? Didn't he see it to only find it out later? It's unbelievable!”

The scandal has opened up major questions about the EU Commission’s policy on nationality — ultimately it was Scott Morton’s lack of an EU passport, not potential conflict-of-interest issues, that scuppered her chances, given that most candidates for the job would have had prior involvement with private sector firms. 

“Narrow-minded, nationalist, non-strategic parochialism,” was how German European Parliament member Reinhard Bütikofer described the debacle as news that Scott Morton was pulling out emerged Wednesday.

Expect aftershocks

But the lasting damage may be to Vestager. 

“This shows poor political judgment,” said a third EU official, who argued Vestager and her team should have directly told the French government they were considering Scott Morton.

For the Danish commissioner, the controversy could not have come at a worse time — the anti-trust czar has thrown her hat in the ring for the top job at the European Investment Bank, which falls vacant at the end of the year. Candidates need the support of the EIB’s board of governors — essentially the finance ministers of the 27 EU member states. 

The topic is due to be discussed when finance ministers gather in September for a meeting. 

While the EIB role can technically be filled via majority support, the aim is to reach a consensus on a candidate. And Vestager’s candidacy is by no means assured, three officials from different member states told POLITICO. 

In particular, speculation is swirling around Nadia Calviño, Spain’s economy minister, who could be out of a job after Sunday’s elections in Spain. Calviño previously ran for the presidency of the Eurogroup, the grouping of finance ministers from countries using the euro currency. 

Vestager, in other words, has some campaigning to do.