US economist turns down key EU antitrust job amid backlash
July 19, 2023
A US economist who was selected for a key EU antitrust job has turned down the offer, the European Commission's competition chief Margrethe Vestager announced Wednesday.
"Professor Fiona Scott Morton has informed me of her decision to not take up the post as Chief Competition Economist," Vestager tweeted. "I accept this with regret and hope that she will continue to use her extraordinary skillset to push for strong competition enforcement."
Morton is currently a professor at Yale University's School of Management and earlier worked for the US Department of Justice as chief economist during former President Barack Obama's administration.
Macron: Morton's appointment raises many questions
The decision to pick an American for a top EU position drew controversy from EU lawmakers and leaders. If Morton would have assumed the role, she would have assisted with EU probes into big tech giants such as Apple and Google.
French President Emmanuel Macron derided the EU's choice to pick Morton, saying it "raised many questions." Macron said such an important role would not be filled by a foreigner in the United States or China.
"Is there really not great European researcher with academic qualifications that could do this job?" Macron said at a meeting of EU leaders.
Manfred Weber, a German politician in the European Parliament who leads the European People's Party, had also expressed astonishment regarding the appointment.
Morton took money from Amazon, Apple, Microsoft
Yet it wasn't just Morton's nationality that raised questions in Europe but also her past consulting work for big tech companies such as Apple, Amazon and Microsoft. Martin Sonneborn, a German member of the European Parliament, criticized the decision to pick someone with multiple conflicts of interest in the tech industry.
In 2019, Morton wrote an opinion piece for The Washington Post that dismissed breaking up big tech companies as "sloganeering."
In Germany, a similar scandal occurred in 2022, when Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock picked Jennifer Morgan, the chief of Greenpeace International, as Germany's special envoy for international climate policy. Morgan, like Morton, was also a US citizen and had done lobbying work.
Morgan was given German citizenship in an expedited ceremony in order to work for Baerbock, a move that drew criticism from German conservatives.
wd/sms (AFP, Reuters)