After multiple threats to boycott from Hollywood elites and major production studios from Disney to Netflix, Georgia has become home to nearly 40 movies and TV shows set to film in the state this September, according to a report from Project Casting.
Several companies are attracted to Georgia because the state provides up to 30 percent back in tax incentives. Georgia is also considered the “number one filming location in the world,” as Georgia Film, Music and Digital Entertainment Office’s deputy commissioner reported.
Scores of Hollywood directors, producers, and actors like Alyssa Milano threatened to pull their productions out of the state. Milano, whose Netflix show Insatiable filmed in Georgia, launched a sex strike in protest of Georgia’s abortion law.
In May, several major film production companies, including AMC Networks and WarnerMedia — the parent company of CNN, HBO, and TNT — threatened to cease filming in Georgia unless the “Heartbeat” bill was repealed.
A statement provided by AMC at the time read:
However, according to the Project Casting report, AMC and The Walking Dead have decided to stay in the Atlanta suburbs to continue filming the hit zombie apocalypse drama.
Netflix’s Stranger Things, which is one of Atlanta’s biggest filming TV shows and questioned filming in the state over the abortion law, has decided to remain, according to the report.
In addition to The Walking Dead and Stranger Things, other films and TV shows, including Netflix’s hit crime drama Ozark and the Eddie Murphy comedy Coming 2 America, have decided to take part in Georgia’s incentive including:
For a full list of the movies and TV shows filming in Georgia this September, click here.
Republican Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia signed into law the “Heartbeat” abortion bill than bans most abortions once a fetal heartbeat can be detected on May 7, 2019. At the end of June, the law was challenged in court by pro-abortion advocates who claimed the abortion law is unconstitutional. The law is expected to go into effect on Jan. 1 2020.
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Lui qui se cachait derrière ses fourneaux, de crainte du jugement de ses clients, est devenu le grand favori de Top Chef. Olivier Streiff a imposé son style vestimentaire et culinaire mais s’est arrêté aux portes de la finale. Il a maintenant d’autres rêves en tête.
Son aspect austère, voire inquiétant, révèle un “feu d’artifice à l’intérieur”. Olivier Streiff, considéré comme un poète par le jury de Top Chef, a quitté l’émission ce lundi. Le cuisinier chouchou du public a été éliminé par Hélène Darroze, Jean-François Piège, Phillipe Etchebest et Michel Sarran en demi-finale. À 38 ans, le doyen de la promotion a pris avec beaucoup de recul et de compréhension la décision de ses pairs. Il a d’ailleurs déclaré ne pas vivre cette fin comme un échec.
Tout au long de l’émission, Olivier Streiff a dévoilé sa personnalité sensible derrière son masque de sympathique gothique. Le Lorrain, qui officiait jusqu’au début du programme dans un restaurant de la Côte d’Azur, a surpris le public par son apparence longiligne, ses paupières peintes en noire et sa coupe directement inspirée par celle du leader d’Indochine. Dans une interview accordée à Noisey, Olivier Streiff a déroulé par le menu ses influences musicales et a partagé son envie ultime de faire un jour à dîner pour Nicola Sirkis, l’une de ses idoles. “L’idée d’une collaboration entre sa musique et ma cuisine me tente beaucoup” confie-t-il. Passionné par la musique, il cite également The Cure, Placebo, David Bowie et Pierre Soulages pour l’inspiration graphique des oeuvres en nuances de noir.
À défaut d’avoir choisi une carrière militaire qui le tentait au début, puis conscient de ses piètres talents de chanteur, Olivier Streiff s’est plongé avec passion dans la cuisine dès l’âge de 13 ans. Doué d’une grande connaissance de la cuisine classique, il apporte sa touche personnelle en couleur ou en saveur dans ses assiettes. Le cuisinier n’aura pas la chance de remporter le chèque offert au gagnant de Top Chef mais sa carrière devrait sans problème connaître un sérieux coup de booster.
Interrogé par TV Mag, Olivier Strieff a confié qu’il n’avait “rien de concret pour l’instant” mais il a déjà choisi de quitter la Côte-d’Azur pour se “rapprocher de la région parisienne”. Les téléspectateurs de M6 devraient le retrouver lundi prochain à l’antenne à l’occasion de la finale qui opposera Kevin à Xavier. Comme chaque année, les deux finalistes ont constitué des brigades d’anciens candidats afin de servir un repas à cent convives.
Merci à tous pour votre soutien !Ce n’est pas une défaite mais bien le début d’une nouvelle aventure…A très vite… 😉 Olivier Streiff
Posted by Olivier Streiff on lundi 6 avril 2015
Pop star Lana Del Rey responded to questions surrounding her personal political leanings in an interview with the New York Times and said that she is “really not more of a liberal than I am a Republican.”
The “Summertime Sadness” star dropped her fifth album Norman Fucking Rockwell! Friday and spoke to the New York Times about one of her more controversial lyrics in “The Greatest” — “Kanye West is blond and gone” – in the interview published Wednesday.
The Times mentioned the singer’s past decision to call out West’s support of President Trump and asked, “Have you heard anything in response?”
“I don’t want to elicit a response,” Del Rey said.
“You never feel better for having written something like that. But Kanye just means so much to us. And by the way, I’m grateful to be in a country where everyone can have their own political views,” she said before admitting that she does “not necessarily identify as a liberal.”
“I’m really not more of a liberal than I am a Republican — I’m in the middle,” the singer explained. “But it was more like the mood and the vibe around, Yo, this man is the greatest! Really? The greatest? It hurt me. Did I have to say anything? No. But it’s more just a line that represents a lot of things.”
Del Rey made waves earlier this month after dropping partial lyrics of her song “Looking for America” as a response to the mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio.
“Now I know I’m not a politician and I’m not trying to be so excuse me for having an opinion — but in light of all of the mass shootings and the back to back shootings in the last couple of days which really affected me on a cellular level I just wanted to post this video,” she wrote to her nearly 14 million followers on Instagram.
The lyrics read in part, “I’m still looking for my own version of America/ One without the gun, where the flag can freely fly/ No bombs in the sky/ Only fireworks when you and I collide/ It’s just a dream I had in mind.”
The Grammy nominee actively wondered if it “is it the end of an era? Is it the end of America?” in her 2017 album Lust for Life.
Frans Timmermans | Frederick Florin/AFP via Getty Images
Poland: Timmermans used Commission phone for campaigning
First vice president accused of mixing his day job and his election campaign.
Frans Timmermans, the presumptive center-left nominee in the race to replace Jean-Claude Juncker as Commission president, breached the Commission code of conduct by using his EU phone to tweet about his campaign, a Polish diplomat charged.
Polish diplomats and ministers have expressed frustration at Timmermans’ attempts to discipline Warsaw for alleged rule-of-law violations. “Timmermans needs this Article 7 procedure in his campaign as a tool to profile himself,” the diplomat said.
Timmermans tweeted December 11 to kick off his electoral campaign, from his @TimmermansEU Twitter account, using photos taken at the Party of European Socialists’ congress in Lisbon the previous weekend.
Poland’s Brussels-based diplomats are complaining because Timmermans used a Commission phone to send the tweet, and sent it from a Commission meeting, mixing his activities as a commissioner and political campaigner.
“He did this during a Commission hearing,” a senior Polish diplomat told POLITICO. “We already complained twice about this to the Commission, but haven’t got any answer yet.”
The Polish government also complained verbally at a December 12 meeting of the General Affairs Council, a day after Timmermans’ tweet, and again at a December 19 meeting of EU ambassadors, according to the diplomat.
The Commission’s code of conduct states that commissioners who are running for the European Parliament or Commission president “may not use the Commission’s human or material resources for activities linked to the electoral campaign.”
Commissioners are however allowed to stand for European office, so long as they inform the Commission president. Commissioners may engage in European-level campaigning “provided that this does not compromise their availability for service in the Commission and the priority to be given to their Commission duties over party commitment.”
While the Party of European Socialists has made clear it intends to nominate Timmermans for the Commission presidency, it has yet to formally endorse him. Timmermans is the only candidate after an internal process that ran from October to December 2018.
Commission spokesperson Margaritis Schinas, rejected the idea that Timmermans could be biased against Poland, saying: “He has done a great job.”
Irish musician Sinead O’Connor has backtracked and apologized for her comments last year in which she called white people and “non-Muslims” “disgusting.”
In November of 2018, O’Connor, who converted to Islam in 2018, wrote on Twitter that she did not want to “spend time with white people again,” calling them “disgusting.”
“I’m terribly sorry. What I’m about to say is something so racist I never thought my soul could ever feel it. But truly I never wanna spend time with white people again (if that’s what non-muslims are called),” the “Nothing Compares 2 U” singer said. “Not for one moment, for any reason. They are disgusting.”
After a Friday appearance on Ireland’s Late Late Show, where she discussed the Islamic faith and performed her most popular single, O’Connor issued an apology on Twitter, saying she was “angry and unwell” and “triggered as a result of Islamophobia” at the time she made the statement.
During her appearance on the Late Late Show, the Grammy-winner stated she “had so much prejudice about Islam” and that reading the Quran made her “realize I’m home, and that I’ve been a Muslim all my life. There’s a way of thinking.”
In 2017, O’Connor shared a video to Facebook in which she claimed to be suicidal, suffering from mental illness and living in a motel room in the “arse end of New Jersey”
“I’m all by myself and there’s absolutely nobody in my life except my doctor, my psychiatrist, the sweetest man on earth, who says I’m his hero, and that’s about the only thing keeping me alive at the moment and that’s kind of pathetic,” O’Connor said at the time.
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Fifty years after the Apollo 11 moon landing, the second stage of the space race is underway — and Europe has to decide whether it wants to be a front-runner.
In November, ministers from across the Continent will meet in Spain to figure out which projects to fund under the umbrella of the European Space Agency, a club of 22 countries that manages exploration, satellites and planning. The decisions to be taken include figuring out whether to fund an asteroid-deflecting project alongside NASA, and how ambitious to be on future exploration missions.
Europe will also have to decide whether it wants to get involved in the growing militarization of space — something that divides EU countries.
The gathering in Seville will set Europe on a trajectory for how it handles space projects through the 2020s. It comes as the EU asks capitals to firm up the bloc’s own space funding program, while other global players such as the U.S., China, Russia, and now India, make their own — not always benign — moves.
“We are now restarting a space race,” said Marco Fuchs, the CEO of Bremen-based aerospace company OHB. “It’s not just a political race between the Soviet Union and United States but it’s a broader race, like when people first landed in the Americas. At first it was the Spanish, Portuguese, British and Dutch … but later on there was a commercial wave.”
Crowded space
Whereas in the 1960s, only the two superpowers had the means to launch satellites into orbit, now more than 70 countries have their own space agencies, Fuchs said. That’s in addition to entrepreneurs like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Tesla’s Elon Musk and Virgin’s Richard Branson funneling private wealth into commercial spaceflight programs.
Just a few million euros can cover the costs of procuring and launching a small satellite into orbit, a figure within the realms of private enterprise.
“Launch prices have come down and access to space becomes more affordable for smaller players,” said a spokesman for Airbus, Europe’s largest aerospace company.
The total number of registered satellites in orbit (both military and civilian) will likely surpass 5,000 this year, according to the U.N. agency tasked with keeping track. More than 2,000 are operational at the moment, with thousands of pieces of space junk also floating around.
Because Earth orbit is so crucial to just about every aspect of life, there’s growing pressure to militarize space.
Last year, U.S. President Donald Trump announced plans to set up a “space force” as a distinct pillar of the military to police orbital threats. Meanwhile, India this year tested a new satellite-destroying missile, while both China and Russia are investing in everything from orbital drones to satellite jamming.
France, a country whose aerospace industry is crucial to both the national ego and the economy, this summer outlined plans for deploying weapons in orbit, arguing it needs to equip its satellites with machine guns and laser systems to counter threats.
Announcing the plan, French President Emmanuel Macron talked up the need for “strategic autonomy” in space. But while Berlin has co-funded surveillance satellites built for the French military, the German government is not enthusiastic about solo efforts to project force in orbit.
“We need a robust answer to the challenges in space but I see this as a job for the European Space Agency and the EU,” Thomas Jarzombek, an MP with Germany’s ruling Christian Democratic Union and the government’s coordinator on aerospace, said last month.
A December summit of NATO leaders is expected to designate space as a new domain in warfare, raising the thorny issue of whether an attack on a satellite belonging to an alliance member is enough to trigger the pact’s Article 5 collective defense provision.
Europe, we have a problem
The big issue for Europe is whether it wants to pay to play in the top leagues of space.
The European Commission’s proposed space spending of €16 billion is spread from 2021 to 2027, and aims to cover satellite programs and new projects like a secure government communication system and measures to address orbital debris.
That’s tiny in comparison to what others are doing. NASA’s annual budget is over $20 billion (which doesn’t include a sizeable U.S. military space program) and China is splashing around $8 billion each year on its own space industry.
Instead of going toe-to-toe with the U.S. and China, Brussels has pitched the bloc’s investments as part of a plan to become the good guy in orbit. EU countries have put around €10 billion into the Galileo geo-navigation constellation, a more accurate alternative to the U.S. Global Positioning System, while billions of euros have been spent on Copernicus, an Earth-observation system countries can use to monitor everything from climate change to natural disasters.
“To have free and open data access is the right way,” ESA Director General Jan Wörner said earlier this year. “It’s good for mankind.”
But Galileo was hit this summer by an embarrassing almost weeklong outage, understood to be partly due to a software update at a ground-based station near Munich. EU officials are quick to point out the constellation remains in its trial phase and the U.S. had decades to fine-tune GPS.
“To some extent, having such an incident during such a phase is unfortunately part of the process,” Pierre Delsaux, a deputy director general at the European Commission, told MEPs. But the downtime is not a good look for the EU or ESA, given its insistence in securing autonomous access to space independent of American technology.
Meanwhile, NASA has big ambitions, including sending astronauts back to the moon by 2024 under a project to be assisted by Musk’s SpaceX and Bezos’ Blue Origin.
Again, the EU is playing catch-up.
“We need to set in motion a process to define Europe’s vision for space,” Elżbieta Bieńkowska, the European commissioner for the internal market, told a meeting of space industry executives in January. She’s argued Europe needs to set an ambitious goal to capture public imagination, just as the original moon landing did in the 1960s.
Fuchs sees European policymakers pushing to develop a lunar presence of research installations. Other possibilities are a manned flight to Mars as well as missions to Venus and some of Jupiter’s moons, he said.
But if Europe wants to shoot for the moon and beyond, it will have to find the money to match those ambitions.
This article is from POLITICO Pro: POLITICO’s premium policy service. To discover why thousands of professionals rely on Pro every day, email [email protected] for a complimentary trial.
Power 105.1’s The Breakfast Club co-host Charlamagne Tha God on Friday pressed 2020 presidential candidate and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg on his poor polling numbers and debate performances.
Facing heavy losses in May’s European Parliament election, France’s two traditional major parties risk becoming just bit-part players in the two biggest blocs in the chamber.
That, in turn, will mean fewer influential posts for lawmakers and less clout in the Parliament for one of the EU’s big powers and founding members.
Both the conservative Les Républicains and the Socialist Party (PS) have been hit hard by the rise of Emmanuel Macron and his centrist party. The PS is in particularly dire straits, polling at only around 5 percent. If it falls below that threshold in the election, it will not send any MEPs at all to the next Parliament.
“The risk is that the left is so deeply divided that there won’t be any French person to represent it in the Parliament,” said a staff member from the French delegation of the center-left Socialists & Democrats (S&D) bloc in the legislature. “What we’re facing is a catastrophe.”
According to POLITICO’s latest projection based on opinion polls, the party that won 13 seats in the last election would drop to five seats in the next Parliament — as part of a 133-strong Socialists & Democrats group. That’s a serious comedown for the party that has produced pioneers of the European project such as François Mitterrand and Jacques Delors.
“We are going to lose a lot of MEPs,” said Christine Revault d’Allonnes-Bonnefoy, a Socialist MEP who has been mentioned as a possible candidate to lead her party in the May election. “Right now, we are doing the job, we’re getting on with things. It’s not enough, but I don’t have any magic wand to change things.”
Center-left parties are struggling across much of Europe but they are finding the going particularly tough in France, where the left has fractured into multiple parties and movements.
MEPs like Isabelle Thomas, Guillaume Balas and Edouard Martin have quit the PS to join “Générations-s,” a left-wing party created by former Socialist presidential candidate Benoît Hamon. Others like Emmanuel Maurel joined the far-left France Unbowed led by former MEP Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
Right off
Things are looking only a bit better for Les Républicains. They are forecast to win 11 seats in the Parliament, compared to 20 in the last election five years ago, making them a small presence in a European People’s Party (EPP) bloc of 176 MEPs.
Les Républicains have been in trouble since their candidate François Fillon’s presidential campaign imploded in 2017. The party now appears weak, divided and largely inaudible on EU affairs. Some of its senior European parliamentarians are set to bow out of the chamber, including Alain Lamassoure, Michel Dantin and Françoise Grossetête, who has been an MEP since 1994. The future of Elisabeth Morin-Chartier, another high-profile MEP from the party, remains unclear.
“Not long ago, we had 30 MEPs from a list led by Michel Barnier,” lamented Morin-Chartier, referring to the former European commissioner and current Brexit negotiator. She said the party needs “a regiment of MEPs who are recognized in France and must be influential here in the Parliament.”
Also contributing to the gloom among MEPs from Les Républicains is the Euroskeptic tone often struck by the leadership under party chief Laurent Wauquiez.
“Their call to reform Europe has become a mantra, and shows the total ignorance of everything that has been carried out in the last five years when the right has led the governing majority in Europe,” Grossetête told the French magazine Le Point in an interview last month.
The current projections suggest Les Républicains would constitute a smaller delegation within the EPP than Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party, while the once-mighty French Socialists would bring the same number of seats to the S&D table as Denmark’s Social Democrats.
Strength in numbers
Being a sizeable national delegation inside a big group in the Parliament means wielding considerable clout. In recent years, French MEPs have pushed for progress on issues that France regarded as priorities, such as a revision of the rules on EU citizens working temporarily in another EU country, the sharing of airline passenger records and the removal of online terror content.
Although the next European Parliament is projected to be more fragmented than the current one, the EPP and S&D are on course to be the largest groups once again. If French MEPs are only small factions within those groups, they stand less chance of winning senior posts — such as committee chairs and policy coordinator roles for their blocs — and of driving the legislative agenda.
Coordinators are crucial as they are appointed for two and a half years thanks to their seniority and experience to act as spokespeople for their group in the Parliament’s legislative committees.
France currently has two coordinators in the S&D group — veteran Socialist Pervenche Bérès in the Economic Affairs Committee, and Virginie Rozière, another Socialist who is a coordinator for the Petitions Committee. It also has several vice coordinators like the EPP’s Arnaud Danjean in the Foreign Affairs Committee.
But only Danjean is almost certain to stay on as an MEP, as a leading candidate for Les Républicains. Berès is set to leave the chamber in May while Rozière’s fate is unclear.
The loss of big-hitters will also mean a lower media profile for French MEPs back home.
“There will be fewer people in France to explain what the Parliament does for voters,” said the French S&D official. “The two big European parties will be inaudible [in France], and that will only strengthen extreme forces.”
Another Parliament official said the decline of the traditional parties could contribute to a greater imbalance in the Franco-German relationship at the heart of the EU. France would not be able to count so much on its MEPs to “convince their German counterparts” in the big groups, the official said.
The main beneficiaries of the travails of Les Républicains and the Socialists are Macron’s La République En Marche, and an array of Euroskeptics from both the left and right, with Marine Le Pen’s National Rally foremost among them.
Euroskeptics would be bolstered by 35 French MEPs — 21 from the National Rally, eight from the far-left France Unbowed and six from the nationalist Debout la France.
Pro-EU politicians will take some comfort from the fact that Macron’s party is forecast to win 20 seats in May’s election. But it will almost certainly not be part of the two biggest groups. Instead it has formed a tentative alliance with the liberal ALDE group, which is predicted to win 68 seats. Most of its MEPs will also be inexperienced, making it harder for them to claim many senior posts in the Parliament or in a group.
The current EU executive remains in office until the end of October but some governments have already announced their candidates for the next five-year term | Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Von der Leyen reveals picks for European Commission
Complete list of nominees from all EU27 countries.
Ursula von der Leyen has picked her team.
The European Commission’s president-elect on Monday signed off on her list of nominees for the next Commission. She will announce their portfolios on Tuesday.
The new Commission is due to take office on November 1 but the nominees will only become commissioners if they are confirmed by the European Parliament.
Here’s the list of proposed commissioners, together with indications of their possible future portfolios based on POLITICO’s reporting.
Josep Borrell, Spain, Party of European Socialists (PES) Current role: Spain’s minister for foreign affairs Expected role in the new Commission: The European Council has nominated Borrell as the next EU high representative overseeing foreign affairs and security policy.
Helena Dalli, Malta, PES Current role: Malta’s minister for European affairs and equality Possible role in new Commission: Unclear.
Valdis Dombrovskis, Latvia, European People’s Party (EPP) Current role: European Commission vice president for the euro and social dialogue Possible role: Latvia is hoping to get a portfolio connected to finance and the economy, according to one official.
Elisa Ferreira, Portugal, formerly affiliated with PES Current role: Vice governor of the Bank of Portugal, former minister, former MEP Possible role: Portugal has expressed interest in the regional policy portfolio.
Mariya Gabriel, Bulgaria, EPP Current role: European commissioner for digital economy and society
Possible role: Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov has said that he turned down the post of high representative for foreign policy for his country and wants “a commissioner with a real portfolio.” He also said he would be keen to keep the digital portfolio for Bulgaria.
Paolo Gentiloni, Italy, PES Current role: Former prime minister who has also served as foreign minister Possible role: Italian officials have expressed interest in an economic portfolio such as competition but Gentiloni lacks economic policy experience.
Sylvie Goulard, France, Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) Current role: Deputy governor at the French central bank, former MEP Possible role: France’s Europe minister has said the country is interested in the internal market portfolio.
Johannes Hahn, Austria, EPP Current role: European commissioner for neighborhood policy and enlargement Possible role: Officials have suggested Hahn may be in line for the budget portfolio.
Phil Hogan, Ireland, EPP
Current role: European commissioner for agriculture
Possible role: Hogan is the leading candidate to become trade commissioner.
Ylva Johansson, Sweden, PES Current role: Sweden’s employment minister Possible role: Unclear but Johansson has experience working on employment, education and welfare policy.
Věra Jourová, Czech Republic, ALDE Current role: European commissioner for justice, consumers and gender equality Possible role: Jourová has been offered a portfolio focused on democracy issues, including the rule of law, disinformation, election meddling and hate speech. The job would likely also come with a vice presidential rank.
Stella Kyriakides, Cyprus, EPP Current role: Member of Cyprus’ House of Representatives Possible role: Kyriakides has a background in health, and could end up with a portfolio related to that area.
Janez Lenarčič, Slovenia, civil servant but set to work as part of ALDE Current role: Ambassador of Slovenia to the EU Possible role: Slovenia is interested in portfolios such as enlargement, regional policy, energy and trade, one official said.
Rovana Plumb, Romania, PES Current role: MEP, former government minister Possible role: Unclear.
Didier Reynders, Belgium, ALDE Current role: Belgium’s deputy prime minister and foreign minister Possible role: As a foreign minister and former finance minister, Reynders has experience on a range of policy issues, and according to one official he is currently considered a possible alternative to Jourová for the rule of law portfolio.
Margaritis Schinas, Greece, EPP Current role: Until recently European Commission chief spokesperson Possible role: Unclear.
Nicolas Schmit, Luxembourg, PES Current role: MEP and former minister for labor, employment, and social economy Possible role: Schmit has expressed interest in a social policy portfolio.
Maroš Šefčovič, Slovakia, PES Current role: European Commission vice president in charge of the energy union Possible role: Slovakia is hoping to get a vice president role with a “strong portfolio,” according to one official.
Kadri Simson, Estonia, ALDE Current role: Served as Estonia’s minister of economic affairs from 2016 until 2019. Possible role: Simson is considered a leading candidate for the energy portfolio.
Virginijus Sinkevičius, Lithuania. His Farmers and Greens Union forms part of the Greens/European Free Alliance group in the European Parliament, but is not a member of the umbrella political family, the European Green Party. Current role: Lithuania’s minister of economy and innovation Possible role: Sinkevičius told local media in early September that one possibility for him is a post focusing on environment, climate change and fighting pollution, but noted that no final decision has been made.
Dubravka Šuica, Croatia, EPP Current role: Member of the European Parliament Possible role: Unclear. Her knowledge of the western Balkans could make her a candidate for the neighborhood and enlargement post.
Frans Timmermans, Netherlands, PES Current role: European Commission first vice president Possible role: Timmermans is expected to retain the position of first vice president in the new Commission. His portfolio remains unclear, although officials have suggested that the senior vice president positions could be divided into two big overarching portfolios: one focusing on green issues, and the other on digital matters.
László Trócsányi, Hungary, not a party member but allied with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Current role: Trócsányi served as Hungary’s justice minister from 2014 until 2019 and is now a member of the European Parliament. Possible role: Trócsányi told POLITICO he is interested in pursuing the European neighborhood policy and enlargement portfolio, or international cooperation and development.
Jutta Urpilainen, Finland, PES Current role: A member of Finland’s parliament, Urpilainen served as the country’s finance minister from 2011 until 2014. Possible role: Finland is interested in finance, budget, research and innovation, external relations and development, according to one official.
Margrethe Vestager, Denmark, ALDE Current role: European commissioner for competition Possible role: Vestager is also expected to take a senior vice presidential post in the new Commission under a deal agreed by EU leaders. According to two officials, she could take the top digital role.
Ursula von der Leyen, Germany, EPP Current role: Commission president-elect, previously German defense minister Next role: Nominated by the European Council and confirmed by the European Parliament as the Commission’s next president.
Janusz Wojciechowski, Poland, former leader of the Polish Peasants’ Party, now allied with the ruling Law and Justice party, part of the Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe. Current role: A member of the European Court of Auditors. He has served as an MEP from the Law and Justice party list. Possible role: According to Poland’s previous candidate, the country was offered the agriculture portfolio.
POLITICO reporters in Brussels and Paris contributed reporting.
Vestager is sometimes seen as a potential successor to European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker | Jose Sena Goulao/EPA
Vestager in hot seat as she moves to derail mega-merger
Alstom-Siemens deal looks set to be blocked in Brussels, but Paris and Berlin are exerting political pressure.
EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager will face questions on Tuesday from her fellow commissioners over why she is opposing the French and German governments to thwart the creation of a European rail champion.
Vestager is on course to block a landmark merger between France’s Alstom and Germany’s Siemens even though Paris and Berlin insist that the tie-up is needed to build a European industrial heavyweight to counter state-backed Chinese rivals.
The Danish liberal, who is sometimes seen as a potential successor to European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, is set to play a starring role in Tuesday’s highly unusual “orientation debate” among commissioners in Strasbourg, where the Franco-German camp is likely to try to exert its influence.
Although Vestager has already crossed swords with fierce adversaries such as the U.S. tech giants Google and Apple, her opposition to the rail merger is a stern test of her department’s ability to withstand political pressure from the EU’s most powerful states.
EU antitrust enforcers oppose the so-called Railbus deal (think Airbus but with trains). They fear that the companies, by forming a behemoth, would rip off consumers in national markets, where the merged entity would often have an overwhelmingly dominant position.
“We can’t build those [European corporate] champions by undermining competition,” Vestager said at an event last week in Berlin. “We can’t build them with mergers that harm competition, or by looking the other way when Europe’s businesses break our rules.”
Over the past few days, it is senior figures in the French government who have sought to swing the political momentum back in favor of the Alstom-Siemens merger. Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire insisted that it would be a “political mistake” to block the deal. Prime Minister Edouard Philippe also asked: “Would we be happy with a Europe, in which, in 30 years, it would be right for our children and ourselves to travel in trains built and designed by manufacturers that are not European?”
This French pressure comes on the heels of rare murmurs of protest from German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has specifically called on Brussels not to allow its competition rules to stand in the way of mergers that can take the battle to Asia. Germany’s main business lobby, the BDI, also spoke out in favor of anti-China champions last week.
While standing up to France and Germany could deal a blow to Vestager’s own ambitions in Europe, the commissioner is now supported by a formidable group of allies.
On Monday, the European Association of Rail Infrastructure Managers (EIM) sent a letter to Juncker and eight commissioners, including Vestager, opposing the deal.
That industry intervention comes after competition authorities from the U.K., Spain, the Netherlands and Belgium, and Germany also sent letters to the European Commission arguing that Alstom and Siemens have not offered sufficient remedies.
If the French and German governments were to overcome such widespread reservations, policymakers would ask big questions of the Commission’s neutrality.
“Commissioner Vestager will brief the College [of Commissioners] on this case indeed, but no decisions will be taken tomorrow … The aim is to enable a collegiate decision by the deadline [on February 18],” said a person familiar with the matter.
The Strasbourg meeting gives Vestager’s critics some leverage over the decision. Competition experts say such orientation debates are not uncommon as they help the commissioners to test their positions ahead of determining a final official stance on a specific matter. However, it is rare ahead of a merger decision, which underlines the strategic importance of the deal.
As far as her own career prospects are concerned, Vestager is intimating that she might not have too many friends left on the European political stage after May’s European Parliament election and the appointment of a new Commission later in the year.
As she told Danish news outlet B.T., “Next year at this time I’m probably unemployed.”
But that may not necessarily be the case. Blocking a big merger often builds a political reputation. To the shock of many international observers, Mario Monti, who later went on to be Italian prime minister, blocked the mega-merger of his time: GE-Honeywell in 2001.
Lili Bayer and Joshua Posaner contributed reporting.
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