Contradicting its Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) (see EUROPE 12521/21), the European Parliament approved by a narrow majority (343 votes in favour, 296 against, 56 abstentions), early on Wednesday evening, 8 July, the appointment of Frenchman François-Louis Michaud as Executive Director of the European Banking Authority (EBA), as proposed by the EBA's Supervisory Board.
Saying he was “honoured” by the appointment, Mr Michaud promised that one of his priorities would be to “ensure gender equality at all levels of the organisation”, according to a statement by the EBA.
The outcome of the vote in the European Parliament plenary session was undecided since the competent parliamentary committee had rejected Mr Michaud's candidacy and because the European Parliament had, at the beginning of the year, rejected an initial candidacy, that of the Irishman Gerry Cross, over a question of gender equality and because of the latter's pantouflage to the AFME, a financial lobby (see EUROPE 12415/9).
Parliament also contradicted the coordinators of the ECON Committee, who had informally communicated the following order of preference regarding the EBA pre-selection: Isabelle Vaillant (France), followed by Mr Michaud and Mr Cross.
In the vote, the majority of the European left opted to reject Mr Michaud's candidacy, even though the S&D group was divided over the issue. Mr Giegold (Greens/EFA, Germany), referred in a statement to a “setback for gender equality in EU leadership positions in the financial sector” that contradicts the European Parliament resolution of March 2019. As the position of the Greens/EFA Group is one of principle, it nevertheless congratulated Mr Michaud.
Regretting the outcome of the vote, Piernicola Pedicini (NI, Italy) hoped that a more gender-equal selection process would be put in place for the future.
As for the right of the political chessboard, there were no voting instructions in play. The French delegations did not wish to eliminate a Frenchman—whose skills and career path are otherwise beyond reproach—from heading up a European authority now based in Paris and whose role will be important for post-Covid-19 economic recovery.
Within the Renew Europe group, the French delegation seems to be satisfied with Mr Michaud's written commitments, even if the outcome of the vote surprised even Stéphanie Yon-Courtin somewhat: "This is an opportunity to review the procedure so that it is clear, the European Parliament is involved, and they are able to choose between a man and a woman", she told EUROPE on Thursday 9 July. "We can no longer continue having such legal and democratic vagueness", she added, announcing her group's forthcoming initiative to change the rules governing European supervisory authorities.
However, French MEPs of the EPP Group, Agnès Evren and François-Xavier Bellamy, welcomed Mr Michaud's appointment. “We are confident that he will rise to the critical challenges facing the banking sector and we know he will deliver on his gender parity commitments”, they said. “If Parliament in plenary session had confirmed the ECON Committee's negative vote, this gender criterion would have been consistently deemed more important than the competence, integrity or vision of candidates for future appointments”, they added. In their opinion, “such a bias does not in any way promote the very legitimate work of advancing equality between women and men”. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)