Vestager sides with Macron as EU election race heats up

Competition commissioner expected to join campaign team of liberal ALDE alliance.

European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager has thrown her weight behind French President Emmanuel Macron’s pre-electoral campaign in a hint that their political stars may be aligning.

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In a tweet, the high-profile Danish commissioner copied a link to Macron’s program and invited her followers to “Renew our Europe!” on the day the French president launched his European campaign.

Unfortunately for Vestager, she got the link wrong. But she followed up on Friday, with another endorsement of Macron’s platform — and the correct link.

“Renew our Europe! Societies where everyone is counted in, working against climate change in a way that creates jobs and sustainability. Now is the time to act and support a fairer and more effective European Union! I like this,” she declared.

In European Parliamentary circles, Vestager is widely expected to join the team of leading candidates for top EU jobs from the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) by the time of their next conference on March 21. Asked whether she would join the slate of candidates, an official close to Vestager said: “You can see on March 21.”

ALDE has formed links with Macron’s La République En Marche party and the French president has reportedly been impressed by Vestager. In 2017, three European Parliament officials said Macron hoped to convince her to be the candidate for the next European Commission president. However, Macron’s enthusiasm may have cooled after Vestager blocked the Siemens-Alstom merger that would have created a Franco-German rail giant

Any Vestager bid for the Commission presidency would face considerable obstacles. Not least, she would need the support of Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, a political opponent. Also, the ALDE political group is forecast to be the third-largest in the next Parliament, behind the Socialists & Democrats and the European People’s Party (EPP), who are forecast to come first and would be in pole position to select the next Commission president.

Vestager said last year she would like another term as competition chief but even that prospect is highly uncertain, given Rasmussen would need to nominate her as Denmark’s commissioner.

Asked about her prospects of being a member of the next commission in a POLITICO interview last month, Vestager made clear she hoped to stay on. She said she had not given notice on the lease of her Brussels apartment.

ALDE aims to break the mold with not one but at least seven leading candidates for top EU jobs. Their names will be presented at the March 21 meeting when the EU’s eight liberal prime ministers, as well as party leaders and European commissioners, kick off the group’s campaign at their usual pre-European Council summit meeting in Brussels.

The goal of the ALDE list is to disrupt the backed Spitzenkandidat system, backed by the EPP and Socialists and Democrats who have each nominated a single candidate in May’s European Parliament election to lead the Commission.

ALDE’s decision not to nominate a single Spitzenkandidat also brought them closer to Macron, who rejects the current process.

Vestager would join a list of candidates which is also expected to include Luis Garicano, the lead candidate of Spain’s center-right Ciudadanos party, Nicola Beer, a German MP and secretary-general of the liberal FDP party, and Guy Verhofstadt, the liberal leader in the European Parliament and former Belgian prime minister.

As a strong female figure and fierce promoter of Europe, Vestager has long been a favorite of European liberals.

“It would be great to have Vestager at the head of the Commission,” Beer told POLITICO at a recent ALDE congress in Berlin, praising her decision to block the Siemens-Alstom Merger.