(Removes incorrect reference to Lamy attending AU meeting in
July)
By Tom Miles
GENEVA, Sept 4 (Reuters) – Candidates to replace Pascal Lamy
as head of the World Trade Organization when the Frenchman steps
down in a year’s time are warming up for a contest that looks
likely to become another round of international horse trading.
Emerging market countries will want to see one of their own
in charge of the Geneva-based trading club, after the top jobs
at the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank went to a
European and an American.
But there are already signs that developing nations will
squabble over the identity of their candidate, meaning the race
for the job overseeing negotiations to reform global farm
subsidies, customs and trading rules is wide open.
“It’s a multi-dimensional chess game,” said one ambassador
to the WTO. “As in any election, you have to choose the best
moment to put your cards on the table.”
Lamy’s tenure at the WTO has been marked by Russia’s
accession last month, and disputes, notably a trans-Atlantic row
over aircraft subsidies between Boeing and Airbus. But
most of all, it has been overshadowed by the failure to agree on
any reform of the world trade rules.
Whoever succeeds him will find unfinished negotiations over
trade liberalisation and competing claims from different
regional and economic blocs about what the next steps should be.
Reviving the Doha round of trade talks risks getting bogged
down in old arguments and driving the WTO into obsolescence but
a bold bid to shake things up is bound to be divisive.
Continued…
