Sabine Weyand, who 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 US President Donald Trump, the FT reports.
The EU trade official publicly refuted his superiors’ view that the deal struck in Scotland last year was compatible with global trade rules, the report said.
The Commission announced Tuesday that Weyand will spend some time as an adviser to its secretary-general. She will then take up a teaching post at the University Institute in Florence, two officials told the FT.
From June 1, Weyand will be replaced by another experienced trade official, Ditte Juul Jørgensen, who currently heads the energy department, the commission said.
Under the agreement between the US president and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the EU agreed to pay 15 percent tariffs on most products, while reducing its tariffs to zero on most US goods.
Von der Leyen has repeatedly defended the agreement as being consistent with WTO rules and said it was the first step toward a comprehensive free trade agreement.
But Weyand contradicted his fellow German, telling the European Parliament in September that the Turnberry agreement “does not meet WTO conditions”.
“If we go to the US and say ‘Can you agree with us that the aim is to turn this into a fully WTO-compliant FTA?’ I think the answer to that would be a resounding ‘no,'” Weyand said.
He also said at a separate public event last year that the EU was reluctant to retaliate against Trump’s unilateral tariffs because it feared it would no longer protect Europe and Ukraine from Russia.
At the signing of the Turnberry deal. Weyand, second from left, stood with a sad face, while von der Leyen, center, and Trade Commissioner Maros Šefčovič, third from left, smiled © US Mission to the European Union
“The European side was under enormous pressure to find a quick solution to stabilize transatlantic relations – especially with regard to security guarantees,” he said.
Weyand stood stiffly at the signing of the Turnberry deal, while von der Leyen and Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic smiled with their thumbs up, echoing Trump’s tone.
Carl von Falkenberg, former deputy director general of DG Trade, told the FT that the relationship between Weyand and Sefcovic had “completely broken down”. Von Falkenberg sided with Weyand: “The idea of an FTA where one side raises tariffs and the other removes them is nonsense.”
He said Weyand was unhappy with Sefcovic’s recent call for WTO reform that would break long-standing taboos such as not discriminating between members when imposing tariffs.
The EU commissioner argued that countries should be able to impose higher tariffs on those that do not open their markets on an equal basis, an unspoken reference to China, the Financial Times reported.
Cambridge-educated Weyand rose to prominence as the lead negotiator of the UK’s Brexit withdrawal agreement. This led Britain to agree to pay a large bill to the EU before it could gain future trade access.
Anton Spisak, who worked on the deal for the UK government, said she had a strong relationship with UK negotiator Ollie Robbins, who was recently sacked as head of the Foreign Office. “DG Trade was their reward for how well they managed the Brexit process.”
The EU struck long-delayed trade deals this year with the Mercosur bloc of Latin American countries, India and Australia, partly driven by countries seeking to diversify from the US market.
A senior EU official denied any differences with von der Leyen. “He has had an impressive seven years at the helm of DG Trade. In the past few months, he has worked on Mercosur, India and Australia with Mexico soon to be on board. This is a logical moment to move forward.”
Ignacio García Bercero, a former senior official who worked with Jorgensen, said: “She knows business inside out. She has a strong commitment to multilateralism and is interested in development-related issues and stability.”
