{"id":231047,"date":"2025-07-02T04:12:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T04:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/231047\/"},"modified":"2025-07-02T04:12:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T04:12:11","slug":"he-was-the-eus-great-brexit-survivor-can-maros-sefcovic-now-pull-off-a-trade-deal-with-trump-european-union","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/231047\/","title":{"rendered":"He was the EU\u2019s great Brexit survivor. Can Maro\u0161 \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d now pull off a trade deal with Trump? | European Union"},"content":{"rendered":"

In May 2019 Maro\u0161 \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d was travelling with Donald Trump and his entourage to a liquefied natural gas export terminal in Hackberry, Louisiana. The then European Commission vice-president in charge of energy had flown with Trump onboard Air Force One, calling his wife as the privilege of a first-time flyer on the presidential plane. Once at the facility, <\/strong>Trump gave a typically rambling speech<\/a>, in which he name-checked \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d from the stage, pointing into the crowd like a gameshow host: \u201cMaro\u0161, thank you very much. Thank you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course,\u201d recalled someone familiar with the day, \u201cwhen Trump pronounced his name it was a bit of a disaster\u201d. But for a top-ranking official of a multilateral organisation, this warm welcome was probably as good as it gets when it comes to the US president.<\/p>\n

More than six years later, \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d is tasked with negotiating a trade deal with the second Trump administration. The pressure is on. Trump, who claims the EU was formed to \u201cscrew the US\u201d, has threatened to impose 50% tariffs on the bloc\u2019s imports<\/a> if there is no deal by 9 July. Meanwhile, \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d is crisscrossing the world, racing to nail down trade pacts with several countries, including India<\/a>, the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand, while navigating Europe\u2019s complex relationship with China<\/a>. During one intense week in May he spent just two nights in a bed, otherwise resting in planes during an itinerary taking in France, Germany, Singapore, Japan and Kenya.<\/p>\n

The Slovak diplomat is the EU\u2019s longest-serving commissioner. Since arriving at the Berlaymont headquarters in 2009, he has built up a reputation as a reliable and trustworthy fixer. \u201cHe is always in a good mood, always trying to find a way,\u201d a senior EU diplomat told the Guardian. \u201cHe is never in an extreme mood [of] \u2018lets start a trade war\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

European Commission vice president Maro\u0161 \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d (right) speaks to journalists outside Europe House, in 2020 as EU ambassador to the UK Joao Vale de Almeida (left) stands by Photograph: Tolga Akmen\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Usually wearing a tie and matching pocket square, often with a smile and a joke, \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d is seen as a diligent problem solver, not seeking to outshine his boss, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen. Although few mangle his name as spectacularly as Trump, plenty in Brussels mispronounce the Slovak \u010d, pronounced \u201cch\u201d. Popular with his staff, he is reserved with the media, almost never giving interviews. \u201cHe is the kind of person who doesn\u2019t make enemies. That is why when there is something difficult to do you ask him,\u201d said Jean De Ruyt, a veteran Belgian diplomat, who worked alongside \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d in the mid 2000s.<\/p>\n

All his diplomatic nous was needed when he took charge of the Brexit withdrawal agreement in February 2020 for the EU. The UK had just finalised its acrimonious divorce. Relations between Brussels and Boris Johnson\u2019s government were tense and mistrustful.<\/p>\n

Despite the froideur, \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d struck up a rapport with his opposite number, Michael Gove, culminating in a handwritten note signed by the two men to resolve disputes over the Northern Irish border, including the transportation of chilled meats. Gove nicknamed <\/strong>\u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d \u201cthe sausage king\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But it crumbled when Gove was succeeded by the Brexit negotiator David Frost, known as \u201cFrosty the No Man\u201d. After the switch, the UK decided unilaterally not to apply parts of the painstakingly negotiated Northern Ireland protocol<\/a>. It was a tough blow for \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d, who had pushed EU officials to do the maximum. \u201cI\u2019d say that hurt him a lot. He had been pragmatic. He pushed his officials to go as far as they could go,\u201d a UK source told the Guardian. But although \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d launched legal action<\/a>, he held off on a blazing trade war. In the end, patience paid off and he outlasted five British Conservative interlocutors: Gove, Frost, Liz Truss, James Cleverly and David Cameron.<\/p>\n

Vice-President of the European Commission Maro\u0161 \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d and UK foreign secretary Liz Truss in 2022. Photograph: Rob Pinney\/AP<\/p>\n

Colleagues praise his willingness to listen, whether to Swiss trade unions or Northern Irish politicians. But it is not just meeting and greeting. \u201cHe has a way of creating an atmosphere that is conducive to creating a solution,\u201d one senior EU official said. The meetings with Cleverly were some of the liveliest, the person recalled: \u201cThey would have the meeting rooms crying with laughter through their banter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cleverly, the foreign secretary who negotiated the Windsor framework<\/a> with \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d, told the Guardian their good personal relationship had made a difference. \u201cWe had to explore ideas that, had they been leaked in an incomplete fashion, would have been incredibly damaging to one of us, or the other, or indeed both.\u201d Cleverly said he felt able to present proposals knowing \u201cthe conversation wouldn\u2019t be used as some kind of leverage or wouldn\u2019t be leaked\u201d.<\/p>\n

Against this smooth record, one failure stands out: \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d\u2019s defeat in the 2019 Slovakian presidential elections to Zuzana \u010caputov\u00e1, a liberal lawyer who triumphed on a platform of tolerance and anti-corruption<\/a>. The election was held the year after the murders of the investigative journalist J\u00e1n Kuciak and his fianc\u00e9e, Martina Ku\u0161n\u00edrov\u00e1. Slovakia\u2019s ruling Smer party, badly tainted by the killings<\/a>, could not find anyone to stand. \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d, not a Smer party member, was persuaded to run but seemed ill-cast for the role of anti-system populist that party strategists wanted.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, facing \u010caputov\u00e1 in the final round, \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d attacked her supposed \u201csuper-liberal agenda\u201d as being against Christian values. Shocking some EU observers, he criticised same-sex partnerships and the European policy of migrant quotas<\/a>. Martin Burgr, a political strategist on \u010caputov\u00e1\u2019s team, said \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d began as \u201ca very decent opponent\u201d, but by the end \u201cwas forced \u2026 to be harder and more populistic\u201d. That was misguided, Burgr suggested: \u201cHe was seen as a liberal from Europe, as a Brussels guy, not a conservative person. I think this was a mistake to try to make him something that he wasn\u2019t and that he is not.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maro\u0161 \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d and European Commissioner for Preparedness and Crisis, Hadja Lahbib, arrive for the weekly EU College of Commissioners in Brussels this year. Photograph: Geert Vanden Wijngaert\/AP<\/p>\n

Since that defeat, \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d has been twice renominated as Slovakia\u2019s EU commissioner. Returning in 2024, he was given the trade brief, one of the biggest jobs in the commission, reporting directly to von der Leyen. He has a good relationship with his workaholic boss<\/a>, another pragmatic dealmaker. The two are the only senior EU officials said to use the basement gym in the commission\u2019s headquarters. \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d, a student athlete, favours Diet Coke, and walks his two golden retrievers twice a day.<\/p>\n

Meantime, he has plenty on his plate. European insiders are downbeat about the prospects of a zero-tariff deal with the US. \u201cI cannot imagine how we will agree,\u201d the senior EU diplomat said. \u201cThey [the US] want to collect tariffs; they want to be beautifully rich.\u201d But \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d will not give up, the person insisted. \u201cHe will be coming with new proposals, other proposals, trying to convince.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In May 2019 Maro\u0161 \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d was travelling with Donald Trump and his entourage to a liquefied natural gas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-231047","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-european-union","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114781693237198693","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}