“I think if the [European] Parliament got any idea that it was a political decision in order to help the president-elect to get the support of Italy, Parliament would be furious and that could cause gigantic problems for the president,” Vestager told a Thursday press conference.
“I find it a bit difficult to understand how it could be a political decision” since approval needs to be taken under competition law, she said, blasting “the continued accusation that it’s a political decision, which it’s not.”
“How would that be perceived? If I said ‘OK, I think that it will help the [Commission] president if this merger is being approved?'”
“Maybe I’m not smart enough to see through what would be sort of the politics of it,” she said. “But I don’t think that it has any merit to suggest that because I don’t think anyone can say that it would be, as a given thing, be good to do it like that.”
Italian officials pushed hard for the EU to clear the deal. Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini last month said a potential veto would be a “hostile act” against the country. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said last year that the Commission was dragging its feet when it had “asked us for years to find a solution” to the national airline’s financial troubles.
Meloni was wooed by von der Leyen last month ahead of EU leaders’ decision to give her a second term heading the EU executive. Meloni ultimately abstained from supporting von der Leyen’s candidacy in anger at being shut out of the decision-making process.
