EU’s Top Censor Out Of A Job
Thierry Breton has finally taken the next logical step in his role as the EU’s censor: he’s talked himself out of his job.
Over the last few years, Thierry Breton, the former CEO of France Telecom, has spent the last few years as the Commissioner for the Internal Market in the EU, where he has positioned himself as a sort of tech regulatory czar. But, now he’s out. While the press is describing it as a “resignation,” his own letter admits that it is because the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen had requested that France propose someone else to be France’s designated candidate for a European Commission position.
For the past few years, Breton has constantly boosted his own profile in pursuit of tech policy results that he, personally, wanted. As we’ve described, he has a long history of both self-promotion and inflating his job as Commissioner into basically being a full tech czar. He has repeatedly interpreted the Digital Services Act (DSA) to mean that he can demand certain content be removed, which has only served to piss off EU colleagues, who keep insisting the DSA is not a censorship law.
He has also been leading the charge in the EU to hamstring AI tools, gleefully pushing a bill that was mostly conceived of prior to the generative AI boom, and then trying to retrofit the law to that world, resulting in quite a regulatory mess.
Still, it had been assumed that he would keep his job as the digital regulator as von der Leyen was prepared to present her new slate of Commissioners. Each member state gets to designate someone to be a Commissioner, and the bigger countries (e.g., Germany, France) often get the higher profile/more important roles.
Emmanuel Macron had designated Breton to continue in that role, though there had been some concerns that Breton was a liability. Breton had also pissed off von der Leyen back in March, tweeting out a mocking tweet about how she was outvoted by her own party, and suggesting maybe she shouldn’t be leading the EU.
On Monday, Breton tweeted out his “resignation.” It’s clear that von der Leyen had asked Macron for someone other than Breton, promising Macron that France would get a better, more influential Commissioner job if it was anyone but Breton. Hence Breton’s resignation:
On 25 July. President Emmanuel Macron designated me as France’s official candidate for a second mandate in the College of Commissioners as he had already publicly announced on the margins of the European Council on 28 June. A few days ago, in the very final stretch of negotiations on the composition of the future College, you asked France to withdraw my name for personal reasons that in no instance you have discussed directly with me and offered, as a political trade-off, an allegedly more influential portfolio for France in the future College. You will now be proposed a different candidate.
And thus, he submitted his resignation “effective immediately.”
Somehow, he posted this letter without including a photo of himself. This is surprising, given the vast majority of his tweets include self-portraits (not selfies).
Macron quickly designated France’s outgoing foreign minister, Stéphane Séjourné, as Breton’s replacement. This doesn’t mean that Séjourné will get Breton’s assignment either, or that whoever does eventually get it won’t be even worse than Breton was. But it should serve as a reminder, yet again, of how much power the European Commissioner has over how some of these laws are interpreted.
On Tuesday, von der Leyen rolled out her proposed slate of Commissioners. Séjourné is up for “Prosperity and Industrial Strength” whatever that means. It’s not at all clear where the tech policy portfolio will land, as there are a few places it might end up. Finland’s Henna Virkkunen is given “tech sovereignty” which again is not clear. Either way Breton is out and we’ll see what comes of the new Commission.