Fiona Scott Morton, the controversial American appointee to the European Commission, has backed out of taking up the role amid pressure from French ministers and MEPs.
Morton is a former US Government advisor who has worked with global technology companies including Amazon and Apple.
There was uproar when she was offered a top job as an advisor in the European Union’s main competition authority, the Directorate General for Competition (DG COMP).
In a letter shared by Commissioner Margrethe Vestager on Twitter, Morton said she would not to take up the position because of the “political controversy that has arisen because of the selection of a non-European to fill this position”. She noted that it was important for DG COMP to have “the full backing of the European Union”.
Morton certainly lacked full EU backing, with some of the most vocal criticism of her appointment coming from the French Government.
French ministers unleashed a barrage of scepticism, culminating in a definitive “Non!” from French President Emmanuel Macron.
Macron insisted that no such appointment would be allowed by the US or the Chinese governments.
For “strategic autonomy … you need to have autonomy of thought,” he told reporters in Brussels – referring to the EU’s long-term goal of building its own domestic, self-sufficient industrial base.
The EC had defended its decision by saying that Morton was the most qualified person for the job. Macron quipped it would “extremely worrying” if that were the case, meaning no one of the same calibre could be found in the entire EU.
During a Q&A session in the European Parliament on July 18, Vestager came under heavy fire from MEPs.
In answering numerous questions she also contradicted herself.
Vestager argued that “very few people” met the qualifications for the role offered to Morton, or were willing to take up the post. “It would be wrong to deprive the Commission and Europeans of the best economic advice,” she told MEPs.
However, she later stated “someone will be able to replace her” if Morton was unable to advise on certain cases.
Morton has a long history of working with the world’s biggest technology firms. She was an anti-trust advisor to the administration of former US President Barack Obama from 2011 – 2012. For five years before that she had worked for a firm that acted as a consultant to Apple, Amazon and Microsoft. Shortly after leaving her government post, she took up a role advising Apple and Amazon herself.
According to EC rules, Morton would be unable to work on cases that involved any of the firms she had previously advised. That would prove problematic, observers say, given that fighting foreign “Big Tech” influence and establishing a native European digital industry is one of the EU’s ambitions.
It appears Vestager’s appeal that “experience in private companies should be an asset and not a hindrance” has fallen on deaf ears.
When pressed by MEPs to make Morton’s client history public, Vestager said that information was confidential.
