France to nominate Sylvie Goulard for EU Commissioner
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France has proposed Sylvie Goulard, the deputy governor of the Bank of France and a former European lawmaker, as its candidate for European Union commissioner, according to various media reports.
The move comes with President Emmanuel Macron’s government looking to clinch a top portfolio such as trade or climate.
A former adviser to Romano Prodi, the ex-Commission president, Goulard was a MEP for the liberal ALDE group from 2009 to 2017 and served as a rapporteur on many high profile economic files including eurozone governance. She is one of the most ardent promoters of Franco-German ties and one the few French politicians who can speak German and Italian.
In 2017, Macron appointed her defence minister, but she resigned a month later, following a legal investigation into whether she used assistants inappropriately during her time as an MEP. She has not yet been cleared of these suspicions, and many officials believe those could complicate her nomination hearings in the European Parliament in October.
If Goulard secures the support of Commission President-elect Ursula von der Leyen and the European Parliament, she will replace Pierre Moscovici — the current European commissioner for economic and financial affairs, taxation and customs — as the French commissioner.
