New WTO chief will be in charge of global talks to open markets
Lamy is set to finish Doha round
May 17, 2005
Geneva - Former EU trade commissioner Pascal Lamy was selected on Friday to head the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and is set on completing the Doha round of free trade negotiations as his top priority.
"To lead these negotiations in the right direction is our priority number one, our priority number two and our priority number three," he said when launching his candidacy.
The Frenchman will be in charge of global talks aimed at cutting border tariffs and opening markets. Lamy edged out the Uruguayan candidate, Carlos Perez del Castillo, for the four-year post. He ended his five-year stint as EU trade chief in November.
Before that, he was the chief executive at Credit Lyonnais, overseeing the privatisation of the French bank after it lost $20 billion (R122 billion) in a series of scandals.
As director-general of the 148-member WTO, Lamy will be charged with managing a December summit in Hong Kong and brokering a global trade accord next year.
The biggest case to go to the Geneva-based trade body - a dispute between the EU and US over aid to plane makers Airbus and Boeing - may also be litigated under his four-year tenure.
Lamy is expected to be formally appointed at the next meeting of the WTO's executive general council on May 26. He will take over on September 1.
Lamy was born on April 8 1947 in the Paris suburb of Lavallois-Perret. He graduated from France's leading business school, the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales, and has a master's degree in business. He was once a member of the French Socialist Party.
Throughout his campaign for the top job at the WTO, the former French civil servant insisted that he would be impartial if chosen as WTO chief and not promote the interests of France or Europe. "One cannot take positions which reflect where one came from," he declared.
Initially opposed by many developing nations, Lamy gradually won many of them over, particularly the poorest, with his call to "rebalance" the trade system in their favour.
Although he is known to be close to the left of the French political spectrum, Lamy's commitment to economic liberalisation made him a hate figure for French and international groups that campaign against free trade and what they call unbridled capitalism.
One of these dubbed him the "Santa Claus to the transnational corporations". He had a baptism of fire in 1999 when he led EU delegates to the Seattle WTO conference. It ended in dramatic failure, with a bust-up between rich and poor nations inside the meeting, and street battles between police and protesters outside.
During the battles, he maintained the calm but firm approach that characterised his style throughout his five years as EU trade commissioner.
Listing jogging, tennis and cycling as his hobbies, Lamy used to be a running partner of Robert Zoellick, the former US trade representative, who is now second in charge at the US state department, when they were both in more junior jobs in Brussels in the early 1990s.
"He's extremely experienced, highly professional and has a great drive," Leon Brittan, a former EU commissioner and now a vice-chairman of UBS, said from London.
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