Groß ist die Freude, wenn eine Quelle ein Thema ordentlich zusammenfasst, zu dem ein Mandant um Bericht bittet, und die Verwertung der Quelle auch hier in Ordnung geht, weil sie öffentlich ist.
In diesem Sinn hier ein Link zu einem gut gemachten Artikel der Online-Ausgabe des NRC Handelsblad vom 19. November 2009: Wohin mit Frau Kroes?
Der Artikel ist nicht unparteiisch und könnte heute Nachmittag schon überholt sein. Er schildert aber die Hintergründe dieser Nominierungsfrage über den Tag hinaus und verdient bereits aus diesem Grund einen kurzen Blick.
Ein Teaser:
Kroes’ five years in office can be divided into two parts: before and after the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in September 2008. The first four years were a learning process. She started out weakish because the European parliament had grilled her about her ties to certain companies, and her presumed ties to a suspect real estate developer called Paarlberg. Then she had to build up technical knowledge of the issues, and find her place in European decision making.
Her job as Commissioner for competition was to make sure that companies didn’t form illegal cartels or otherwise distorted the free competition rules that are at the heart of the European unification process. She had mergers and acquisitions investigated; her dawn inspection teams raided pharmaceutical and chemical companies. She was tough and principled, but she mainly continued the policies implemented by her predecessors Van Miert and Monti.
Improvising
Then came the crisis. Suddenly Kroes’ office was flooded with state bailouts of the banks, leading to huge political conflicts. Kroes had to cook up a political strategy. In the past year she has mainly had to improvise. She honestly believes she played a key part in saving the internal market from collapse. That’s why she initially wouldn’t consider any other portfolio than competition: she fears everything could fall apart if someone else takes over.
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