Emmanuel Macron said he was “doubtful” on Tuesday, July 18, about the appointment of American Fiona Scott Morton to a key post in the European Union (EU) for the regulation of major tech groups and said he was waiting for answers from the European Commission. The declaration of the President of the Republic, made in Brussels on the sidelines of a summit with the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, comes just before a hearing of the Vice-President of the European executive, Margrethe Vestager, in the European Parliament .
The appointment of Ms Scott Morton as new chief economist at the European Commission’s Directorate General for Competition has been deemed scandalous by MEPs, who are demanding an explanation.
The European executive had addressed on Friday an end of inadmissibility to the French government, which asked for the cancellation of the recruitment of this professor of economics at the prestigious Yale University. “If we don’t have any [European] researchers of this level to be recruited by the Commission, it means that we have a very big problem with all the European academic systems,” Macron replied on Tuesday. The Head of State also underlined the lack of “reciprocity” on the part of the United States and China to appoint Europeans who would be “at the heart of [their] decisions”.
Elected officials have mentioned the former functions of Ms. Scott Morton as head of economic analysis at the antitrust division of the United States Department of Justice, between 2011 and 2012, or as a consultant for large tech groups such as Amazon, Apple and Microsoft . They denounce possible conflicts of interest and the risk of interference by Washington in EU decisions.
“Digital Wild West” and “American Sheriff”
Mr. Macron said he had “a lot of respect” for the American expert. But “she’s been hired by a lot of companies and would have to step back from those situations, which makes it pretty ineffective what they’re hiring her for,” he said. “I think Europeans need to develop European skills, to have strategic autonomy (…), you need to have autonomy of thought” and the recruitment of Ms Scott Morton “is not necessarily the most coherent decision in this regard,” he criticized.
The Directorate-General for Competition is responsible for ensuring the proper functioning of competition in the EU and for investigating, in particular, abuses of a dominant position by major digital groups, which have resulted in record fines in recent years. In France, a fine of €371.6 million was imposed on Apple in October 2022.
Ms Scott Morton’s appointment comes as the EU agreed in March 2022 on new legislation, the Digital Markets Act (DMA), to end abuses of dominant position by digital giants . This new regulation, which will come into force from March 2024, will allow Brussels to act upstream by imposing on the most powerful players rules to be respected under penalty of dissuasive fines. The objective is to act before abusive behavior has destroyed competition. This appointment also fuels criticism of Ms Vestager and Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the Commission, considered to be very Atlanticist.
“We ended the digital wild west to appoint an American sheriff? (…) This appointment goes against our sovereignty,” said MEP Stéphanie Yon-Courtin (Renew, centrists and liberals), at the initiative of hearing Ms. Vestager.
However, the Commission relativizes the responsibilities that will be assumed by Ms. Scott Morton, ensuring that it is not a decision-making position but only an advisory function to Ms. Vestager.
Fiona Scott Morton has so far not reacted to the controversy, despite some voices calling on her to abandon her candidacy.
