Who Valdis Dombrovskis really is and why Von der Leyen appointed him EU commissioner for trade. The article by Tino Oldani for Italy Today
Valdis Dombrovskis, 49, former prime minister of Latvia, represents in Brussels a country that has just one million 900 thousand inhabitants, far fewer than the city of Rome. Yet for a couple of days he has been considered the man of greatest power over the economy of the entire European Union. Ursula Von der Leyen, president of the EU Commission, appointed him commissioner for trade, replacing Irishman Phil Hogan, who was forced to resign at home following his participation in a crowded golf party just the day after the Dublin government had decreed a ban on gatherings due to the pandemic. The choice of Dombrovskis in place of Hogan was justified by Von der Leyen on the basis of the common membership of the two in the European People’s Party. As if to say: a fact internal to the EPP, and nothing else.
Instead it is much more. First, this appointment signifies a political humiliation of Ireland. Von der Leyen, together with Dombrovskis, in fact appointed the Irish MEP Mariead McGuinness as EU commissioner, attributing only two minor proxies that were part of the department headed by Hogan (stability and the financial market), while the much richer Commerce portfolio passed into the hands of Dombrovskis, thus making him the dominus of all EU economic issues, as the former premier reader has retained all the previous powers: executive vice president of the EU Commission with responsibility for the Economy, as well as representative of the Commission during the meetings of the finance ministers of the 27 EU countries who sit in the Eurogroup.
This means that Dombrovskis, who has a reputation as a hawk, will continue to supervise the budgets of the 27 EU countries and closely mark the Commissioner for the Economy, Paolo Gentiloni, who, unlike his predecessors, does not enjoy a full mandate for control of national budgets.
More than a dominus, to tell the truth, in Brussels there are those who consider Dombrovskis a kapo of the EU economy, a faithful executor of the austerity line imposed for years by Germany on the rest of Europe. A fame that the former Latvian prime minister had begun to earn at home, where in the five years of his government (2009-2014) he imposed a series of measures so harsh as to force more than 250,000 ailerons to emigrate abroad to escape a poverty that had nothing to envy to that inflicted on Greece. An emigration recorded by the censuses: from 2 million 163 thousand inhabitants in 2008, Latvia fell to 1 million 908 thousand in 2019.
In Latvia, no one seems to regret Dombrovskis: following the austerity imposed by him as premier, his party, Union, has dropped from 30 to 8% of electoral votes. But thanks to his total adherence to the principles of austerity, in Brussels, where he landed in 2016, he gradually became one of the most faithful commissioners to German directives, accumulating increasingly important positions in the economic sector, up to the last en plein of a few days ago.
On closer inspection, even the choice to entrust him with the trade portfolio is not accidental. For three years, a war of US trade tariffs against China and the European Union has been underway, which does not bode well for Europe, especially for Germany, whose economy is based on exports. A war started by Donald Trump in 2018 with the decision to introduce US tariffs on the import of steel (25%) and aluminum (10%), followed by a 25% increase in tariffs on a series of goods produced by some countries Europeans, including Italy, as an American retaliation against state aid to Airbus. Aid recognized as such by the WTO (World Trade Organization), for which Trump has been authorized to introduce tariffs for 7.5 billion dollars. Not only.
In recent months, there have been some approaches between the US and the EU to end a war that is not good for anyone. In August, in Brussels, the elimination by the EU of duties on lobsters imported from the USA was even celebrated as a first step in a relaxing way. But something else will be needed. “Not much will happen in transatlantic trade in the next year,” said Fredrik Erikson, director of the European Center for International Economic Policy recently. «What happens will depend entirely on the next US president. If Trump is re-elected, I fear that we will have more friction and more protectionism between the EU and the United States ». In this scenario fraught with difficulties, like it or not, Germanized Europe has entrusted the fate of its trade to a trusted kapo. Make sure he’s the right man
(Extract from an article published in Italia Oggi; here the full version)
