On BMF Business: Sylvie Goulard excluded from the European Commission
During the Inside edition of Thursday 10 October 2019 on BFM Business, Yves Bertoncini, President of the European Movement – France, commented on Sylvie Goulard’s dismissal by MEPs.
According to Yves Bertoncini, Sylvie Goulard’s dismissal can be explained on both form and substance. In terms of form, this is a parliamentary control procedure that is democratic and more advanced than those in force in many Member States. The exercise of this control by the European Parliament has led to portfolio revocations or reorganisations over the past twenty years.
On the substance, some MEPs find it incomprehensible that a person who cannot be a Minister in Paris can be a Commissioner in Brussels. This double standard is all the more criticized because other candidates from Central Europe had been rejected. “Emmanuel Macron underestimated how Europeans would be able to live with this double standard”, Yves Bertoncini said in an article in L’Opinion.
Nor should we deny the institutional power relations (the opposition between Parliament and the Council), partisan (within Parliament itself), or even diplomatic (the Franco-German consultation around the candidate), which did not work in her favour. “Emmanuel Macron trampled on the legitimacy of the European Parliament and humiliated Manfred Weber by imposing Von der Leyen as head of the Commission“.
As a reminder, during the vote of the MEPs, Sylvie Goulard was rejected by 82 votes to 29. According to Yves Bertoncini, “even if Emmanuel Macron will have to appoint someone else in his place, it is true that it is a stopgap for him”.
“Sylvie Goulard was Emmanuel Macron’s personal choice, it was also a risk taking because she had business to justify. But it is a fact that through it it was he who was targeted, it was also his envoy in the service of an ambitious agenda on Europe that not everyone shares in Brussels and Strasbourg”, commented the President of the European Movement – France.
Click on this link to review the video: [1:03:42 – 1:04:17]
Read Yves Bertoncini’s comments in L’Opinion.