During the interview Mr Hayes discussed the following topics:
- Deputy Head, then Head of Unit for relations with EFTA countries, DG1;
- Head of Delegation in Helsinki, setting up the Delegation;
- the great transformation of Europe with the fall of the Berlin wall and the Soviet empire, and the effects on the EFTA enlargement;
- the EEA process;
- the Finns as different from the rest of the Nordics
- neutrality: ‘the dog that didn’t bark’;
- Head of Unit for relations with North America, DG1/DG RELEX;
- multilateral trade negotiations;
- Uruguay Round;
- Maastricht Treaty;
- Monetary Union and US-NATO-EU relations;
- G7 and the Quad, obstacles to multilateral trade agreements in the 1990s and comparisons with TTIP, disagreements on agriculture and GMOs;
- Economic Assistant to Director General DG1;
- The Delors Presidency, Commission in the driver’s seat;
- growing intergovernmentalism and side-lining of the Commission from mid-1990s onwards, comparing Thorn and Delors;
- comparing Fielding and Krenzler;
- Head of Delegation in Ottawa: free trade agreement with Canada, Rogue ambassadors pushing EU-Canada trade deal;
- Institutional reforms and restructuring of the RELEX services, splitting trade and politics, duplication of work: a poor reform taking powers from the Commission.