“Trade and investment ties are hindered. Capital flows continue. I don’t think you can say there is an era of deglobalization. We are living through a restructuring of globalization,” says the director general of the EU’s trade department. Yes, Covid-19 has led to a search for resilient supply chains. But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has “really put the wind in the sails” of Brussels’ plans for trade deals. Official EU buildings look and feel like black holes for personality. Weyand has avoided being swallowed whole. After nearly 30 years at the European Commission, she is recognizable not only by her dark glasses and her swagger, but by her blunt diction and willingness to joke. As the EU’s deputy Brexit negotiator, she was known as the mastermind behind Michel Barnier. He dismissed Britain’s Northern Ireland border proposals as “unicorns”, earning the scorn of Brexiters. “It’s unusual for an official to have so much exposure to the public: I didn’t like it that much.” This is the irony: Brexit was in part a revolt against European bureaucrats. Brussels bureaucrats like Weyand ensured he achieved far less than his supporters wanted. The other irony is that Weyand is an Anglophile, who studied at Cambridge from 1986-87 and whose perspective on free trade is in line with the UK’s historical instincts. He admits that Brexit “makes integration easier” for the EU on security, justice and home affairs, but adds: “On trade, we’re missing a liberal voice, which we had at the table. It took the EU a while to find a new balance here, but I think we’re there now.” There’s my girl-scout attitude kicking in. . . I wanted to serve the European project and thought, by doing damage limitation, I would This new balance is a significant change. Under French influence, the EU has decided that the nice guys will finish last and that assertiveness pays. The Commission has responded to Donald Trump, Chinese subsidies and sustainability concerns by deploying new defense powers, including a carbon tax on imports. The trade directorate has dragged its feet on the most expansive proposals. But Weyand insists the direction is right: “We need partners more than ever, but we must [engage] on the basis of strength”.

Weyand’s faith in the EU was born out of her upbringing in the German village of Körprich in Saarland, half an hour’s drive from the French border. “Europe has always been the reality on the ground for me, but also an aspiration. . . We always went to France to have a good meal.” In person, she is honest but controlled. I mention that her father was a politician. “A local politician,” he says. Is the distinction important, I ask. “I don’t know. I just wanted to be accurate.” He studied politics, economics and English literature, then did a master’s degree at the College of Europe and was “hooked.” In Brussels, she understands both detail and context: “You have to be a political wonk but also a political wonk.” Her frontier upbringing helped. “She understands what drives the French and what drives the Germans,” says Pascal Lamy, who appointed her to his cabinet when he was trade commissioner. “It’s four-wheel drive. He can do a lot of different things.” Until 2016, Weyand was deputy general manager in the trade directorate. The Brexit negotiation may have seemed like a hospital pass. But she “wanted the job . . . There’s my girl-scout attitude kicking in. . . I wanted to serve the European project.” Did he ever believe that the UK would actually leave without a deal? “The one thing I stopped doing quite early on was assuming that all the options from the UK would be rational. Leaving without a deal wouldn’t be the logical option, but that wouldn’t mean it wouldn’t happen. But it was largely seen as a bluff. And it didn’t happen, did it?’ Weyand left the Brexit role in mid-2019, before Boris Johnson negotiated the Northern Ireland protocol. New UK Prime Minister Liz Truss vows to destroy protocol. Are we still in the land of unicorns? “No, I think we’re in the land of nostalgia. I wish we could stop talking about Brexit because the UK has left the EU. I feel strongly that the UK is still clinging to the past — prolonging this Brexit debate. . . We need to find a new accommodation. It won’t happen as long as the UK seems to be fighting the battles of the past.”

On the spot

Tips on how to negotiate? Don’t take yourself too seriously and remember that it’s only a win-win that will bring you to an agreement. UK: friend or foe? Partner and ally. Will another country leave the EU? No. I don’t think it was an experience that encouraged that kind of desire in other parts of the EU. Something you would change about Brussels as a city? No, I like Brussels. Is the EU really ready for a trade war given the events in Ukraine? “I’m not going to speculate. But it makes it very difficult to have an alliance to defend a rules-based international order if in our bilateral relationship those rules are not respected.” Relations with the US have improved under Joe Biden, but Washington’s chip act, which gives $58 billion in subsidies to domestic manufacturers, is causing problems. “If I look at all the public money that goes into semiconductors, we have to guard against the risk of a subsidy race, which will turn out to be very expensive,” Weyand says, without naming the US. “People will say, to make it work, let’s not import anything. It is the danger of the beggar’s politics.” Some subsidies are justified, but without coordination, companies can ‘subsidy shop’. “We’ve seen it: they go around on both sides of the Atlantic and say who offers me more. We have to be careful there.”

Are Western sanctions working on Moscow? Weyand, a self-proclaimed “news champion,” reports on recent leaks from Russia. “They are running out of chips, which affects their industrial production and also their military capabilities. . . Look at an iconic product like a Lada [car] now produced without airbags. And that’s just iconic. If you hear that they depend on drones from Iran and munitions from North Korea, you know the sanctions are working.” So far, the EU finds little evidence that sanctions are being circumvented. Is there anything left in the EU’s toolbox? “We have indeed done a lot on the goods side, there are more things we can do on the service side. But it’s a question of how it works in practice, where there are loopholes or unintended consequences.” Weyand argues that Russia’s aggression has boosted trade cooperation. First, EU countries now see the need to diversify their trade. “We found that we are dependent on Russia not only for fossil fuels, but also for some critical raw materials. We can’t afford it. . . Then we realize that there are certain dependencies in relation to China, and there we also have to be careful: we never know when the dependencies can be weaponized.” Second, other countries are in the same position. “Everyone looks at their dependencies: they’re vulnerabilities, not commercial ties.” It hopes to strike trade deals with Mexico and Chile this year. “We may need a little more time [the trade bloc] Mercosur, because we still have to negotiate an additional instrument on deforestation. . . The priority is to look at Latin America, which we have left too much in the hands of China in recent years.” A deal with Australia is now on target for spring 2023. Meanwhile, India is “challenging”: the hope is to complete negotiations before the end of this committee in 2024.

Whatever deals the EU achieves will inevitably be compared to those signed by the UK, post-Brexit. Brussels arguably drove a tougher deal with New Zealand than London. “In international trade negotiations, size matters,” says Weyand. “On the other hand, the United Kingdom has chosen to essentially do a full opening of its agricultural market. That’s not the choice we made or would ever make.” But the real strategic challenge is China. In response to the abuses in Xinjiang, the Commission is proposing a ban on trade in products produced with forced labour. An outright import ban would risk becoming “discriminatory” given that there is evidence of forced labor within the EU. You know, I’m very interested in Max Weber, the importance of a competent bureaucracy in helping politicians achieve their goals Does taking unilateral action undermine the EU’s credibility in multilateral forums such as the World Trade Organization? “It depends.” Some developing countries, including Indonesia, are “concerned that it would be very difficult to meet our market access criteria on deforestation and other production methods criteria.” However, there are few complaints about the EU’s measures to protect against subsidized imports and economic coercion. “Brazil is considering its own anti-coercion instrument, because we all face the same problem of the erosion of the multilateral trading system.” Weyand may spend her entire career on the committee. Her husband also works there. Does she ever get enough of the negative stereotype of Brussels bureaucrats? “You know, I’m very fond of Max Weber, the importance of a competent bureaucracy to help politicians achieve the goals for which they have been elected. There are distortions and biases, there…