*Anthony Whelan.
SCARIFF’s Anthony Whelan has been appointed to one of the top jobs in the European Commission.
Anthony becomes the first Irish person in more than seven years to be hired to a top executive position in the European Union following his appointment as Director General of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Competition. The Competition Directorate has opened several cases into US companies such as Google, Meta, Apple and X.
Philip Lane being made chief economist of the European Central Bank in March 2019 was the last Irish individual to take on an influential policy-making role in Europe.
Considered a veteran within the European Commission, Whelan succeeds former Director-General Olivier Guersent after a nine-month hiatus, ending a spell of uncertainty marked by mounting U.S. hostility over how the EU enforces its tech antitrust rulebook.
Among the pressing items on his desk include an overhaul of the bloc’s merger guidelines, an urgent review of State Aid rules to respond to the energy shock from the U.S. and Israeli war on Iran.
A former aide to European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, Whelan’s appointment is viewed within Europe as ‘a safe pair of hands’ and trusted figure of the EC President who will modernise competition policy so that European businesses can stand their ground against global rivals. He advised von der Leyen on digital policy for her first six years in office
Speaking to The Financial Times, Whelan has signalled he will press ahead with probes into Big Tech companies despite political pressure from Donald Trump.
He said that his work will not be influenced by “how much noise others make about what we do. When there is more noise, you have to be all the more vigilant about the fact that your cases are well grounded and defendable in court if that is where they would end up”.
In 1995, Anthony commenced his EU career when working as a legal secretary in secretary in the chambers of the Irish Advocate General Nial Fennelly at the Court of Justice of the EU in Luxemburg. Since 2000 he has climbed through the ranks of senior roles in the European Commission in Brussels. He led the legal service of the Commission in their high-profile case involving Microsoft in 2006, where the tech giant was fined a record €500 million over competition breaches.
Born in Moynoe in Scariff, he attended Dooglaun NS in Killanena which closed in 1974 before moving to Scariff NS when his mother Brid Whelan transferred to the teaching staff there. He attended the Cistercian College in Roscrea before studying Law at Trinity College for four years in the late 1980s. He taught public law in the Law School of Trinity College as the youngest ever lecturer in the famed college. He qualified as a barrister at Kings Inns. His father Jackie owned Leyland Garage in Scariff for many years which is now the site of Tom Collins Engineering.
Nicholas Levy and Basak Arslan at law firm Cleary Gottlieb said Whelan’s deep legal knowledge, administrative experience and close ties with von der Leyen position him well “to navigate the pressures on the Commission to support the EU’s long-term economic and strategic ambitions while preserving competitive markets”. They described him as “highly intelligent, politically savvy, pragmatic, open-minded, and a strong believer in vigorous enforcement”.
Peter Power, head of the European Commission Representation in Ireland who was a classmate of Whelan’s in Cistercian College, Roscrea told The Irish Independent, “Anthony’s appointment shows that a career in the commission can lead to an extremely interesting position. Leading the competition directorate is not just one of the most important jobs in the commission, but one of the most important in the whole of Europe”.
Catherine Day, a former secretary general of the European Commission, said that Whelan has got one of the toughest as well as one of the most important jobs in Brussels. “He has wide experience of several different policy areas and has worked in different cabinets, including most recently with president Ursula von der Leyen. It is great to see the exemplary work of a senior Irish official recognised in this decision,” she said.
