EU lawmakers slam Vestager for moving to fill controversial economist job

BRUSSELS — European Union lawmakers rounded on competition chief Margrethe Vestager for lining up final candidates for a key antitrust post just weeks before she’s due to leave.
A last round of interviews for the European Commission’s chief competition economist post is scheduled for Tuesday, three people familiar with the procedure told POLITICO.
Vestager will personally handle the last phase of the selection as she’s done previously, two of them said.
Two German lawmakers, socialist René Repasi and the Greens’ Alexandra Geese, told POLITICO that Vestager shouldn’t be choosing someone for the three-year post so close to the end of the current Commission’s term, scheduled to end on Oct. 31.
“This should be a choice by the newly appointed Commissioner who might think politically quite differently on competition and markets than Ms. Vestager. This is an unfortunate way of securing your political legacy,” Repasi told POLITICO.
The chief economist post has been a bugbear for Vestager after her chosen candidate for the post, star U.S. economist Fiona Scott Morton, was forced to withdraw last July following a wave of French complaints about appointing an American official to a sensitive EU job overseeing U.S. Big Tech firms.
“Vice President Vestager should refrain from predetermining the work of the next Commission on competition,” said Geese. The “chief economist is one of the most crucial positions if Europe wants to achieve independence from the digital universe controlled by a handful of monopolists,” she said.
Even French liberal lawmaker Stéphanie Yon-Courtin, a party colleague of Vestager’s, raised doubts about the process.
“It’s been a year now that we don’t have a chief economist: what is the rush now to make that decision before the end of the term?” she said. “I am aware that it might delay the appointment for a few months but this would allow the selection procedure to be properly organized and to avoid another Scott Morton drama.” 
Since the previous economist Pierre Régibeau retired in August 2023, the post has been empty with official Lluís Saurí serving in an acting capacity. The Commission only published a new vacancy notice in March which required candidates to be EU citizens.
What was once a technocratic position has gained more political attention due to its potential influence on how competition policy could help or hamper efforts to boost EU industrial capacity.
Régibeau provoked a wave of criticism when he said in his first post-retirement interview that the EU does not necessarily need business activities such as steel production. That forced Vestager to reassure trade unions on EU policy.
The Commission didn’t immediately comment on the interviews or the lawmakers’ comments.
Francesca Micheletti contributed reporting.