Paris Insists That EU is not U.S. Vassal State. The Victim is Prof. Fiona: Fiona M. Scott Morton Quit from her candidacy EU Chief Competition

Lexington, Massachusetts 7.11am / Reno Nevada 4.11am / Paris 1.11pm

My little brother has been an Olympic Sains-Physic member since Junior High School (JHS/SMP 5 Yogyakarta – when he was studying at SMP 5, maybe SMP 5 Yogya is the best school in Indonesia for JHS level). In Tarnus (*was the most expensive ever Senior High School in ASEAN), he decided to change his special ability from Physics to Chemical Study, making him gargantuan cost: he started from zero again, and failed to join World Chemical Olympic competition before another (selected) from other Senior High School more expert than him. He never regretted: he kept the Top 10 in Tarnus, and 1 out of 6 Tarnus (his batch) graduates goes to Nanyang —currently Top 15 Universities in the world. Until today he kept paying his loan when studying in Singapore: he never received LPDP / Government Scholarship. 

He was, maybe, frustrated, because stranded “no-job” in Singapore around 4 months after he graduated. He feels Singapore companies and or global companies in Singapore don't want his unique competencies. He got a lot of offers in Indonesia, and until today just worked for 1 company: BUMN / Sovereign Owned Enterprise. 

He was nearly married to a Singaporean: when studying at NTU, I found proof that a billionaire-Singaporean girl loved him very much. The problem: in Indonesia, interfaith marriage is very taboo. His older brother is currently loving Jewish European girl, younger than him. 

Even though he denied or hid from me, now a lot of Singapore companies want his competencies, maybe with (offers, salaries) 15-16x times from current salaries. He kept his employee, and kept his nationality: Indonesia. The Singaporean side now admits that my little brother (now) has a very crucial - sensitive position in BUMN / Indonesia’s Sovereign Owned Enterprise, not like “just graduated from NTU” 12 years ago. His pride in being Indonesian is bigger than mine. If I qualified as strident and nationalistic, it would be a first for me and I did not wait (and don't care) about (every) Singapore side's attempt to hijack my little brother.

Around 4,000 Indonesians change nationalities to be Singaporean, 96% are (Indonesian Tionghoa) Indonesian Chinese Overseas, and at least 150-160 of them in awardees/LPDP recipients (received US$90k / year / person) by Indonesian government, before change nationality to be Singaporean. 80-82 percent awardees / recipients of “subsidize / scholarship” by Indonesian government (around US$90k / year / person) are middle-high class income, actually can afford to pay himself / herself for studying abroad, show how wasted this budget. Around 800 awardees try to defect and or change his/ her nationality from Indonesian citizens (around 2-2.5% total awardees) after enjoying gigantic subsidies / scholarship by Indonesian taxpayer, to show how wasted this budget just ended with result (tragic) brain drain. But not like my little brother.

The EU will truly flourish when it becomes the 51st state. Joke-satire EU is a vassal state of the U.S. gradually bigger in the wake of the Russian - Ukraine war. A French diplomat was said, Fleeting late 1990 memory, just months after The Fall of Berlin Wall, of this (smart and nice) RAND Corporation expert, asked him with a straight face “why couldn’t the US have a seat as an observer in the EU Council.”

Paris tries to show the world that the EU isn't and never ever the Vassal State of the U.S. 

Paris said NO, and the victim is Professor Fiona M. Scott Morton

The EU official who hired American economist Fiona Scott Morton is Danish commissioner Margrethe Vestager. 11 candidates were considered for the job, not only Professor Fiona M. Scott Morton, means at least 10 candidates are EU citizens. Around 5 hours ago, maybe 7.50am - 8am in Brussels, Margrethe Vestager uploaded on Twitter that the US national, Professor Fiona M. Scott Morton withdrew her appointment as Chief Competition Economist for the European Union, after a very massive “NO” from (especially) France. Very little reaction in other EU capitals if compared say NO from Paris about Fiona. It's more convenient to write off the problem by saying "the French". 

When it will hire European nationals (with no dual nationality) in key govt advising positions. The US DOJ / FTC recruitment policy that requires US nationals, for comparison. Meanwhile, US-EU economic competition is raging and Washington takes no prisoners, thanks to the Inflation Reductionary Act. The EU will find a way to use the extraordinary skill-sets of Europeans to push for strong competition enforcement. With opposition from the main EP groups, major commissioners, the HRVP, France, + several member states who were discussing it in private, Fiona Scott Morton had a serious problem and had to "quit" the job she was offered. Now for a European to take it.

Very disappointing coming from RENEW-ALDE, expected more in right-wing British tabloids although Brexit / no longer to be an EU member.

Brexit is “so good” that British citizens have been queuing up to get foreign passports ever since. Sad to think British people with one Irish-born grandparent can attain citizenship so easily, while children of non-Irish parents born here after 2004 have no legal right to citizenship whatsoever.

More awkward for French populists is how they feel about having a Mandarin-speaking Malaysian national as chief economist of the French competition authority, Eshien Chong. Is the idea that we sack him if they object–same as Professor Fiona’s situation? 

Eshien Chong, who holds a doctorate in economics and was previously Chief Economist at the Hong Kong Competition Authority, will take over the management of the Chief Economist’s team, which comprises eight employees, on 5 September.

This position was previously held by Etienne Pfister, to whom the Autorité expresses its sincere thanks for the quality of his work and wishes him every success in his new duties.

French have multiple billion dollar disputes with Malaysia. You don’t want to understand an issue which is first of all political. Let’s stop here: it is a tone deaf politically devastating decision which will be used against the EU in the coming elections.  France was Malaysia’s 18th largest global trading partner and its third-largest trading partner among the European Union member states.

It is confusing “Europeans” with Eastern, Northern and Central Europeans. Actually, a lot of European countries were relieved by the US stance. Not only Germany but Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Belgium, Netherlands, Croatia, Slovenia etc. As for France, the jury is out.

France has been really sensitive since the last 3 years with “Big Tech.” One year after the global investigation, a parliamentary report has painted a damning picture of Uber’s early business practices and its close ties with French powerbrokers. French parliamentary inquiry has slammed President Emmanuel Macron and his cabinet for what it called their “privileged” and “opaque” relationship with Uber. 

The inquiry’s report released (July 18th, 2023) said French leaders engaged in secret discussions and deal-making with Uber executives that“reveals the inability of our system to measure and prevent the influence of private interests on public decision-making.”

The report also paints a damning picture of the company’s business practices and failure to honor job creation promises.

The inquiry was established in response to the Uber Files, an investigation led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and The Guardian that revealed how Uber muscled  into new markets without government approval, deceived investigators and exploited violence against its workers, often with the secretive assistance of political leaders. Mark MacGann, who served as Uber’s chief lobbyist for Europe, the Middle East and Africa from 2014 to 2016, testified to the committee that Uber teams were “delighted” that Macron “took it upon himself to be our advocate within the government, to prioritize the interest of the consumer.”

The report however did not find that Macron had personally benefited from his relations with Uber nor had acted  in any way unlawfully.

The Uber Files were based on a huge trove of internal records that reveal how the ride-hailing behemoth built a sprawling influence machine to pave the road to global domination. After publication, MacGann came forward as the whistleblower who leaked the documents to The Guardian, which shared them with ICIJ. 

The leak exposed secret meetings and a phalanx of lobbyists used to court prominent world leaders to influence legislation and help it avoid taxes, and provided an unprecedented look into the ways Uber defied taxi and labor laws and trampled on workers’ rights.

Citing the reporting by ICIJ and its partners, the inquiry found that Uber used a “kill switch” when trying to prevent investigators from accessing sensitive data during frequent raids on its offices in France and other countries.

Among the controversies exposed by the Uber Files and now detailed in the parliamentary report were secret negotiations between Uber representatives and Macron over UberPop – a “person to person” service allowing anyone to become an occasional driver. The service was illegal under French law and provoked a backlash from France’s taxi drivers.

“Uber Files” scandal may make a French politician very sensitive about (linkage) Professor Fiona and Big Tech. Not only about her citizenship (U.S.). Professor Fiona is an American with no dual nationality advising on competition and that's enough to say it's a politically insane decision.

Years ago, When French economist Esther Duflo Banerjee (married with Indian-American Abhijit Banerjee) wanted to advise President Barack Obama, she had to become a U.S. citizen and declare. Professor Fiona is not pushed by the EU to be (one of) EU Nationalities (French, German, Dutch, etc). Esther is French-American, not only French. 

September 2021, France's chief antitrust enforcer Isabelle de Silva was a rising star known for tough action against U.S. tech giants. Yet this week she had to give her goodbye speech after President Emmanuel Macron ended her run.

The president's decision to dismiss the powerful civil servant comes amid France's renewed push for softer merger rules to pave the way for European champions — a line that de Silva had not always endorsed.

The Franco-American (like Duflo) top official caught the world's attention again in July 2021 when she hit Google with a €500 million fine over copyright payments to press publishers.

It was the sort of decision to set champagne corks popping in Paris — a vindication for the digital policy goals that France has been pressing for years.

Yet less than three months later, de Silva had to step down. In a decision that she said left her "surprised," the competition chief's five-year mandate was not renewed, and she had to hand over on Wednesday ongoing investigations into Apple and Google to an as yet unknown successor.

Contrary to Isabelle de Silva. In 2020, the American Prospect magazine revealed that Scott Morton did not disclose consulting contracts with Apple and Amazon.The article in the American Prospect was written by David Dayen, the journalist who labeled Scott Morton an antitrust crusader a year earlier. Dayen reported that Scott Morton had herself revealed her apparently long-standing consulting work for Apple and consulting work for Amazon that had at that point lasted a year, in a panel where she spoke in 2020.

In another instance, Scott Morton authored an Op-ed advocating against any initiatives to break up Big Tech, without disclosing her ongoing consulting work for Apple. In her defense, Scott Morton stated “I work for companies that I’m comfortable are not breaking the law. Professor Fiona working with Apple, Microsoft, Amazon against antitrust proceedings, & enabled them to acquire large companies (for example she advised Microsoft in the Activision case). Microsoft (MSFT), Activision Deal May Need New UK Probe. Activision Blizzard is delaying its US$69 billion sale to Microsoft as the companies scramble to get final approval from British regulators. The extension likely signals that the two companies believe they will eventually receive needed approvals.

Clarity on process from CMA (Competition and Market Authority) spox: “Whilst merging parties don’t have the opportunity to put forward new remedies once a final report has been issued, they can choose to restructure a deal, which can lead to a new merger investigation. “Microsoft and Activision have indicated that they are considering how the transaction might be modified, and the CMA is prepared to engage with them on this basis. These discussions remain at an early stage and the nature and timing of next steps will be determined in due course. While both parties have requested a pause in Microsoft's appeal to allow these discussions to take place, the CMA decision set out in its final report still stands. We stand ready to consider any proposals from Microsoft to restructure the transaction in a way that would address the concerns set out in our Final Report.”

The already massive divisions in the Renew+ALDE family between Macron's French and the traditional northern European liberals are being exposed even more by the Scott Morton affair. A bigger question: Will Renew + ALDE really be able to campaign together for the EU elections next year? RENEW+ALDE has 102 seats out of 705 seats in the EU Parliament. 

Citizenship is not a prejudice : it entails rights and duties, it demands loyalty to the common good. A EU common good which may be different and even opposed to the US interests. For one thing, being against "anyone who is not European" will play very differently in other EU capitals than "we accept anyone except an American". The first position (Head; Chief) might get support in Berlin, Copenhagen, Warsaw, Dublin. Not the 2nd position. Professor Fiona had little connection to Europe or fighting against these big companies, for such a high-profile job. She worked for some of the abusive tech firms. For a lower-level job maybe but not this leading role. her time with Attorney General Eric Himpton Holder jr didn't show much effort towards blocking corporate mergers. Holder made a mint pushing them through before and after his term.

The EU Commission is neither a NGO nor a private business. It is in charge of European strategic interests which may be opposed to the U.S. ones in some fields. Would the US hire a non U.S. citizen at such a high responsibility job in the federal administration? How does the Brussels bubble not understand that it is not the issue? Did it hear the words “populism”, “euro skepticism”? Did it know we are heading towards difficult euro elections? Did it ever think in political terms?

The NATO summit 2 weeks ago in Vilnius highlighted divisions over Ukraine’s future in the alliance and how far the West should go in supplying weapons, and also to compare how tension between EU side and U.S., not only about Professor Fiona saga.

European nations, once seen as less steadfast in their support for Kyiv and more vulnerable to Russian pressure, are determined to help Ukraine win an unambiguous victory. At the same time, the Biden administration, which orchestrated a unified Western response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion last year, is increasingly cautious—constrained by domestic politics and a fear of direct confrontation with Moscow.

In Europe, the once-gaping divisions between different capitals have narrowed sharply, as countries previously seen as soft on Russia, including France, Italy, Spain and to a lesser extent Germany, have all moved much closer to Ukraine’s fiercest supporters: Poland, the Baltic and the Nordic states.

“It took a while, but then it seeped through. Today a lot of leaders around Europe, including Germany, understand that they must help Ukraine defeat Putin if they want to defend their own security,” said Reinhard Bütikofer, a German member of the European Parliament. “They have well understood that Putin’s threat to Ukraine has significance far beyond Ukraine itself.”

Few major European leaders have similar electoral concerns in the near term. European economies have successfully weaned themselves off dependence on Russian energy, and even the once pro-Putin nationalist parties rarely openly support Moscow nowadays. Many key European leaders who pushed for talks between Kyiv and Moscow last year, most importantly French President Emmanuel Macron, have increasingly come to the view that no deal on Ukraine can be struck until Putin is routed on the battlefield or leaves power.  

There is a growing belief in Europe that the defeat of Russia needs to be super clear, while at least in some corners of the U.S. system there might be a sense that this needs to be a defeat that generates a negotiated outcome.

The changing dynamic on military aid to Ukraine adds to tensions between Washington and many European allies. Though overall European and U.S. assistance to Ukraine is roughly the same, Washington still supplies most of the weapons used by Kyiv. In recent months, however, the Biden administration has been overtaken by European nations when it comes to providing new, more sophisticated and longer-range types of equipment that Kyiv says it needs for military success.

Within Europe, perhaps the most significant shift has occurred in France, the EU’s only nuclear power. Macron, who sought diplomatic engagement with Putin last year, has become increasingly convinced of the need for a Ukrainian victory—a belief he expressed in a landmark speech in Bratislava, Slovakia, on May 31. “Only one peace is possible—a peace that respects international law and is chosen by the victims of the aggression, the Ukrainian people,” he said.

France does have a strategic culture, a strategic vision, and can think about the long term, which is why they are much closer now to the Nordic countries and to NATO’s eastern flank—countries that have no option but to think about the long run, the long-term consequences.

The same sort of socially conservative, nationalist or nativist political currents that oppose helping Ukraine in the U.S. often have a very different attitude in Europe. Italy is a prime example. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whose right-wing coalition includes parties historically friendly to Putin, has become one of Kyiv’s most vocal defenders since coming to power last October.  

Even in a Europe that tilts in some countries to the right, that doesn’t necessarily mean backing off from support for Ukraine. Nationalists like Meloni would feel strongly about the fact that Ukraine is fighting its war of national liberation.”

Europe’s proximity to Ukraine—and America’s distance—explains the different attitudes, she added: “Geography counts at the end of the day. The U.S. is far away, and can live with a compromise in a way that the Europeans would struggle far more to accept.”

Back to Professor Fiona and decision withdrew for her candidacy. Non-EU citizens appear to view the European Commission as some kind of glorified NGO. Many don’t understand the outright security and political dangers of the situation

Members of the French government and the powerful Medef business lobby openly opposed the appointment. Le Monde, France's leading daily newspaper, criticized the decision in a harsh editorial, saying the nomination is "shocking."

Macron, the French president, voiced his criticism as he was leaving the EU-CELAC summit in Brussels on Tuesday. If the Commission can't a European researcher qualified for the role, "it is very disturbing" and "we have a big problem," he told journalists.

"I am very attached to reciprocity, I would be in favor of this configuration if I saw the Americans hiring a European economist to be at the heart of White House decisions and the Chinese the same," Macron continued.

French Trade Minister Olivier Becht also told lawmakers in Paris that Foreign Affairs Minister Catherine Colonna would raise the issue with her European counterparts at Thursday’s (July 13, 2023) Foreign Affairs Council.

Martin Peitz, who heads the Mannheim Center for Competition and Innovation, called her "a stellar economist." Peitz co-signed a letter in support of Scott Morton, along with 38 other prominent economists.

As she pushes for stronger controls on platforms and other tech giants in the digital economy, Scott Morton revealed her work for some of the most prominent names in Big Tech. A consultant with Charles River Associates (CRA) since 2006, Scott Morton worked for companies such as Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Sanofi and Pfizer.

Another CRA, Pierre Régibeau ( Chief Economist of DG Competition, replacing the outgoing Prof. Tommaso Valletti.) has been an Academic Associate of CRA since 1998, advising on landmark cases including Microsoft (for complainants),  Ryanair/Aer Lingus, Servier, Samsung on SEPs, Android (again for complainants) and others. He has been a Vice President in the European Competition team since 2014, providing input on theory and policy matters – including the economics of digital platforms, the economics of innovation, standards and intellectual property rights, vertical restraints and abuse of dominance. He has held academic positions at MIT (Sloan School), Northwestern University (Kellogg School), the Institute for Economic Analysis, CSIC, Barcelona as well as the University of Essex, where he is currently Honorary Professor, and is widely published in industrial organisation, competition policy and international trade.

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-prada- Adi Mulia Pradana is a Helper. Former adviser (President Indonesia) Jokowi for mapping 2-times election. I used to get paid to catch all these blunders—now I do it for free. Trying to work out what's going on, what happens next. Arch enemies of the tobacco industry, (still) survive after getting doxed. Now figure out, or, prevent catastrophic situations in the Indonesian administration from outside the government. After his mom was nearly killed by a syndicate, now I do it (catch all these blunders, especially blunders by an asshole syndicates) for free.

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