The European Commission’s Director-General for Trade, Sabine Weyand, asserted during a hearing before the Parliament’s INTA committee the EU’s commercial achievements in recent years. “The largest network of trade agreements,” she said in Brussels, “is neither China’s nor the United States’. It is ours, and it is growing. It’s not only a question of quantity, but also of the quality of the agreements.”

The European Union can rely, Weyand continued, on “45 trade agreements with 80 countries and partners. Expanding our trade reach and sources of supply is even more important now,” in a period when internationally “the law of the jungle prevails.”

“I leave this post,” Weyand added, “with a sense of accomplishment. Not for me nor for the Commission, but for the European Union. I won’t say that seven years have been a long time, because otherwise people will ask, ‘how long has Weyand been leading DG Trade?'”

Weyand was dismissed from the leadership of DG Trade at the request of the European Commission under President Ursula von der Leyen, who did not forgive her for publicly stating what many in Brussels know: that the EU could not negotiate with the United States at Turnberry, Scotland, because discussions also involved the fate of Ukraine and European defence.