Sabine Weyand, who had led the European Commission’s powerful trade department for seven years, is leaving her job after clashing with her superiors over a hastily agreed trade deal with U.S. President Donald Trump, reports FT.
The EU trade official publicly contradicted her superiors’ view that the agreement struck last year in Scotland was compatible with global trade rules, the report said.
The Commission announced on Tuesday that Weyand would spend some time as an adviser to its secretary-general. She would then head to a teaching post at the University Institute in Florence, two officials told the FT.
Weyand will be replaced from June 1 by Ditte Juul Jørgensen, another experienced trade official who currently heads the energy department, the Commission said.
Under the deal struck between the US president and Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, the EU agreed to pay 15 per cent tariffs on most products while reducing its levies on most American goods to zero.
Von der Leyen has repeatedly defended the pact as being in line with World Trade Organization rules and said it was the first step towards a broader free trade agreement.
But Weyand contradicted her fellow German, telling the European Parliament in September that the Turnberry agreement did not “fulfil WTO conditions.”
“If we were to go to the US and say, ‘could you agree with us that the objective is to transform this into a fully WTO-compatible FTA?’ I think the answer would be a resounding no,” Weyand said.
She also told a separate public event last year that the EU balked at retaliating against Trump’s unilateral tariffs because of fears he would no longer defend Europe and Ukraine from Russia.
“The European side was under enormous pressure to find a quick solution to stabilize transatlantic relations—especially regarding security guarantees,” she said.
Karl von Falkenberg, a former deputy director-general of DG Trade, told the FT the relationship between Weyand and Šefčovič was “completely broken.”
Von Falkenberg sided with Weyand: “The idea of an FTA where one side raises tariffs and the other drops them is nonsense.”
He said Weyand was unhappy with Šefčovič’s recent calls for WTO reform which would break longstanding taboos such as not discriminating between members when applying tariffs.
As reported by the Financial Times, an EU commissioner argued that countries should be able to levy higher tariffs on those that do not open their markets on an equal basis, an unspoken reference to China.
The Cambridge-educated Weyand came to prominence as a key negotiator of the UK’s Brexit Withdrawal Agreement. This left the UK agreeing to pay a huge bill to the EU before establishing its future trade access.
Anton Spisak, who worked on the deal for the UK government, said she had a strong rapport with Olly Robbins, the UK negotiator who has just been sacked as head of the Foreign Office. “DG Trade was her reward for how well she managed the Brexit process.”
The EU clinched long-delayed trade deals with the Mercosur bloc of Latin American countries, India and Australia this year, partly driven by countries seeking to diversify from the US market.
A senior EU official denied any rift with von der Leyen. “She has had an impressive seven years heading up DG Trade. In the last couple of months, she has delivered on Mercosur, India and Australia with Mexico soon. It’s a logical moment to move on.”
Ignacio García Bercero, a former senior official who worked with Jørgensen, said: “She knows trade inside out. She has a strong commitment to multilateralism and interest in development-related issues and sustainability.”
