“The perception is sometimes that this French focus [on internal market] … is really just a cloaked way of building its own French industrial champions,” said Tordoir — although he added that’s not “entirely fair,” and that industry-minded France could play a key role in boosting the EU’s competitiveness.
Regardless, the frustration has been evident in recent policy disputes. Central and Eastern European countries slammed a batch of trucker reforms, which they billed the “Macron law,” on the grounds that they were deeply protectionist. France also came under fire for its push to establish an EU Capitals Markets Union — the move was perceived as a strategy to bolster the European Securities and Markets Authority, which happens to be in Paris.
France’s steady focus on internal market and industry portfolios stands out amid the five-year flurry of Commission portfolio reshuffles, with a few other patterns.
While larger countries snagged the single market beat, trade briefs went to smaller countries. Lithuania is the only non-Mediterranean country to have been put in charge of oceans or maritime since 2004.
And weaker and less visible mandates like development, equality, culture, multilingualism, research, crisis response, health and social affairs were mostly assigned to smaller countries and late EU-joiners, such as Malta, Cyprus, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Hungary and Belgium. Still, by chance, Greece’s Stella Kyriakides stint as Health Commissioner during the Covid-19 pandemic proved weaker portfolios could end up being big briefs, given certain circumstances.
In September, when von der Leyen presented her team of commissioners, there was evident disappointment in some EU capitals — despite her claim that this is a Commission of “equals.”
