Just about to take an Easter break when I see that Fabio Colasanti has finally retired and will be replaced by English Francophile Robert Madelin, who is from High Wycombe (Wasps rugby home), and educated at Magdalen Oxford and Ecole National d'Administration. Watching the Great Man's sighs and eye-rolling as he had to repeat Mme Reding's policies was always a transparent guide to whether he agreed (Romanian regulators told me about body language being more important than rhetoric, based on old regimes, and I called it 'Colasantology').
New DG Madelin was in Leon Brittan's Cabinet at both DG COMP and DG Trade (External), and was then a Director both there and finally DG of Consumer Affairs. So he has a very wide set of very relevant experiences. This promises well. I hope he may have even read the Oxford-edited Journal of Consumer Policy, and my piece on corporate governance, global governance, competition and the Information Society - all in his previous interests: 'he had the chance to work on a range of issues, including: access to medicines, agriculture, biotechnology, corporate responsibility, food and product standards, global governance, intellectual property, investment, services, sustainable development, and relations with the Asia-Pacific.'
P.S. Ignore much of the Googleballs being talked about the First Amendment being rolled back in China as well as Turkey, Thailand etc. The Chinese politburo is about to have several retirements, and the current Colasantis and Redings will not be there in 2 years - so they are cracking down on dissent now. Besides, as Dave Bustein picks up from PointTopic, 300m broadband and 20m fibre users will not be as easily censored in future.
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