Sylvie Goulard

Sylvie Goulard worked in the Legal Affairs Directorate of the French Ministry for Foreign Affairs from 1989 until 1999. She served in particular on the French team responsible for negotiating German reunification.

From 1993 to 1996, she worked at the Conseil d’État (State Council), after which she returned to the Policy Planning Department of the French Ministry for Foreign Affairs, where she was responsible for European issues in conjunction with the equivalent department of the German government.

From 1999 to 2001, she was an associate researcher at the French Centre de Recherches Internationales.[4]

As a political advisor to Romano Prodi when he was president of the European Commission, from 2001 to 2004, Goulard followed the work of the convention presided by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing which was primarily made up of members of national parliaments, who had been charged by the European Council to draft a European constitution.

Goulard's work focuses on the necessity of pursuing European integration whilst also inviting increased public debate about European questions. Europe's citizens must become more engaged with its development in the future. They need to be informed and active: and to achieve this cultural and professional exchanges and learning foreign languages are essential.

At the end of 2006 Goulard was elected president of the Mouvement Européen-France (ME-F), succeeding Pierre Moscovici, who had also been a candidate. She was re-elected as president in December 2008. Le Mouvement Européen-France regularly organises meetings, conferences and debates which aim are to enable a dialogue between political figures, experts and the general public.

Goulard was first elected Member of the European Parliament in the 2009 elections. Throughout her time in parliament, she served on the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. In 2009 became a substitute member of the Agriculture and Rural Development Committee and in 2014, she became a substitute member of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs. In that capacity, she served as rapporteur on budgetary surveillance in the Eurozone.

In addition to her committee assignments, Goulard served as chairwoman of the European Parliament Intergroup on "Extreme Poverty and Human Rights".

On 15 September 2010, Goulard supported the new initiative Spinelli Group, which was founded to reinvigorate the strive for federalisation of the European Union (EU). Other prominent supporters are: Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Guy Verhofstadt, Isabelle Durand as well as Jacques Delors, Joschka Fischer, Andrew Duff and Elmar Brok.

On the national level, François Bayrou included Goulard in his shadow cabinet in 2010; in this capacity, Goulard served as opposition counterpart to Ministry of European Affairs Laurent Wauquiez.[5]

In November 2016, Goulard officially announced her candidacy for the office of President of the European Parliament;[6] the post eventually went to Antonio Tajani.

During her time in parliament, Goulard continued to write regularly in a wide range of both French (Le Monde, La Croix, Libération) and international (Süddeutsche Zeitung, Financial Times particularly) newspapers.

Goulard was appointed by President Emmanuel Macron Minister of the Armed Forces on 17 May, in the First Government of Edouard Philippe. In this capacity, she ranked above her immediate predecessor and foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian in the government hierarchy. She was only the second woman to head the ministry, which reverted to its pre-1974 name of Ministry of the Armed Forces.[7] Goulard was replaced by Florence Parly, a former executive and budget official, in the 21 June government reshuffle.[8] She had stepped down after an inquiry over alleged misuse of payments for assistants in the European Parliament[9] was opened on 20 June 2017.[10]

On 17 January 2018, Goulard was appointed Deputy Governor of the Banque de France, succeeding Denis Beau.[11] In 2020, she was also appointed by the World Health Organization’s Regional Office for Europe to serve as a member of the Pan-European Commission on Health and Sustainable Development, chaired by Mario Monti.[12]

She is in charge of European and international topics, including preparations for G7 and G20 summits. She monitors issues relating to financial stability and financial risks, as well as green finance[13] and gender equality. She has been outspoken on questions related to global warming, in particular citing the impact of climate change on financial stability[14] and calling on the financial sector to shift massively “towards green investments”.[15]

She has expressed support for the euro[16] and the initiative launched by top banks to create a European Payments Initiative (EPI), with a view to promoting European sovereignty. She welcomed the disciplined budgetary approach of the so-called “frugal” European countries, which made it possible to implement the Economic Recovery Plan, as well as the 2021–2027 EU budget.[17] She supports European competition policy, which she sees as beneficial to inhibit the emergence of monopolies, as well as to lower prices, promote consumer purchasing power and compel companies to innovate.[18]

Goulard is also a member of the One Planet Lab.[19]

Hearing of Sylvie Goulard, candidate commissioner for internal market.

On 28 August 2019 President Macron nominated Goulard[20] to be the French Commissioner in the von der Leyen Commission and lead the newly-established Directorate-General for Defence Industry and Space[21]

After two "tense" hearings before the EP Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) and the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE), her nomination was rejected on 10 October 2019, with 82 votes against, 32 in favour and 1 abstention.[22][23][24][25] The rejection was linked to her inability to explain her effective work for the Berggruen Institute, and the fact that she explained that she would not resign even if she was formally indicted[26]

The EPP group's MEPs showed strong animosity against the Goulard's nomination, related to ongoing investigations by the European Anti-Fraud Office. The group tweeted a message (later deleted) reading "Guys, we are going to kill her in the vote later but do not say until then" and attributed to Pedro López de Pablo, the director of communications of the group.[27][28][29]

Many medias concluded that this was a blow for Emmanuel Macron ambitions in Europe. Le Monde titled that this, after the previous Nathalie Loiseau failed leadership in the European parliament, was another consequence of the arrogance of the French President in Europe, and that the European parliament gave him a lesson about morality.[30] On 21 October 2019, two dozen personalities from across Europe, including Robert Badinter, Silvia Costa, David Capitant, Etienne Davignon, Jacques de Larosière, Clemens Fuest, Jean-Paul Gauzès, Charles Grant, Miguel Poiares Maduro, Paolo Magri, Giampiero Massolo, Riccardo Perissich, Etienne Pflimlin, Jean-Marc Sauvé, Giuseppe Tesauro and Jean-Claude Trichet, co-signed a statement[31] that the European Parliament was wrong to dismiss Sylvie Goulard.[32]

On 29 November 2019, she was formally indicted for misappropriation of public funds.[33][34][35]