Thierry Breton, the commissioner for the internal market of the EU and mastermind behind the Digital Networks Act, has resigned amid a row with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Breton announced his resignation in a post on Twitter, unveiling what he called his “official portrait” for the next European Commission term, a blank canvas.
🚨Breaking news:
My official portrait for the next European Commission term ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/BolWcdYiPU
— Thierry Breton (@ThierryBreton) September 16, 2024
He later posted a more detailed resignation letter in which he said he could “no longer exercise my duties” due to “questionable governance” from the bloc’s executive team.
Breton was selected by French President Emmanuel Macron to continue in his role as the EU commissioner for the internal market.
However, Commission President von der Leyen is alleged to have lobbied Macron to abandon support for Breton, instead calling on EU leaders to nominate more diverse candidates.
Without naming von der Leyen by name, Breton attacked the Commission president over the claims in his resignation letter.
"A few days ago, in the very final stretch of negotiations on the composition of the future College, you asked France to withdraw my name for personal reasons that in no instance you have discussed directly with me," Breton wrote on X.
"In light of these latest developments, further testimony to questionable governance, I have to conclude that I can no longer exercise my duties.”
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Breton’s resignation leaves the von der Leyen in disarray after she reportedly pressured other EU nations, including Slovenia and Romania into dropping support for male candidates in favour of creating a more gender-balanced College of Commissioners
With Breton’s departure, the EU has lost a seasoned advocate for a single telecoms market, a call that was seemingly echoed in the recent Mario Draghi report on the EU market’s competitiveness.
During his time as the EU’s internal market commissioner, Breton was a leading figure trying to push through the EU AI Act, a wide-ranging set of regulatory guidelines governing AI systems deployed by businesses on the continent.
Breton also masterminded the Digital Markets Act (DMA), a 2022 piece of regulation that sought to make the digital economy fairer and more contestable.
He attacked the likes of Apple, Google and Meta, ensuring big-name tech firms were compliant with the rules of the DMA.
Also routinely found in Breton’s firing line was the Elon Musk-owned social media platform X (Twitter), arguing the site had infringed EU rules on the distribution of illegal content and disinformation.
Reacting to the news, Dean Bubley, founder and director of Disruptive Analysis, said Breton’s resignation was “very good news for European telecoms.”
“Thierry Breton, lead instigator of the ridiculous ‘fair share’ nonsense, many of the worst aspects of DMA/DSA regulations, and the deeply flawed European Commission white paper on connectivity, has resigned, and won't be on the next EU commission in the new parliament,” he wrote in a LinkedIn post. “It didn’t help that he had a background heading up an old-school telco incumbent & came with a lot of baggage from that.
“Some of that poisonous legacy, and its antipathy to the open internet, vibrant telecom market diversity and non-EU technology firms will live on, if the recent Draghi report is anything to go by.
“But there may now be a shift towards more pragmatism and collaboration in European telecoms and tech, rather than confrontation and protectionism. Alongside the changed leaderships of the European Telecommunications Network Operators' Association and GSMA, let's hope we can put the recent period behind us and move on to better things.”
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