Anger broke out in the European Parliament over the appointment of an American to a top European Commission job.
It came as Fiona Scott Morton, a former US Government official, was given a position as an advisor in the European Union’s main competition authority, the Directorate General for Competition (DG COMP).
The appointment was announced with little fanfare on the EC website on July 11.
On July 13, Yannick Jadot, a French MEP from the Green Group, said in the Parliament that he was “scandalised” by the decision.
“We should be recruiting European citizens,” he fumed.
While the EC does hire non-EU nationals, there are relatively few. Out of around 32,000 staff, some 1,945 are not from the bloc and most of those are local agents hired by EU representatives abroad.
The EC insists that Morton is “highly suitable” for the job, yet EU observers are asking if the body could not have found a European to take up the role given the size of the EU’s talent pool.
The appointment of the US citizen has also brought up deeper concerns.
Continuing his point in the European Parliament, Jadot said Morton “is also a lobbyist for Apple, Amazon and Microsoft”.
While “lobbyist” might be an overly strong term, observers say, there may be a potential conflict of interest.
Le Monde pointed out that between 2006 and 2011 Morton had worked for a firm that acted as a consultant to Apple, Amazon and Microsoft. While US media outlet The New Republic hailed her as an “anti-trust” crusader, a Bloomberg reporter subsequently revealed that she had been advising both Amazon and Apple as they confronted federal anti-trust investigations in the US.
That came following the period she worked as an anti-trust assistant in the administration of the-then US President Barack Obama – a 2011-2012 stint – which most experts say did little to stop the increasing domination of “Big Tech” firms.
Curtailing foreign Big Tech influence and establishing a native European digital industry has been a major concern for many in the EU.
Jadot said Morton’s appointment “goes against … the European Parliament and our wish to achieve digital sovereignty”.
“We should be lobbyists against these tech companies,” he added, before calling on EC President Ursula von der Leyen and its digital competition chief Margrethe Vestager to “stop the nomination in its tracks”.
Those sentiments were echoed by the Right, when fellow Frenchman Jordan Bardella, an MEP with Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, said it looked like “the ‘big five’ tech firms have one of their own” in a top EU position.
Bardella concluded by citing a Parliament rule that demands the EC to justify such an appointment.
