SUNS 4338 Friday 4 December 1998
US, EC HOLD UP DG SELECTION
Geneva, 2 Dec (Chakravarthi Raghavan) -- The United States and the European Union are holding up the election of a new Director-General for the World Trade Organization to succeed Mr. Renato Ruggiero trade diplomats said Wednesday evening.
According to a time-table originally set, the WTO General Council was to complete the process of selecting a candidate, and electing him at the meeting of the General Council, which is set for next week.
There are four candidates seeking the job: Hassan Abuyoub (Morrocco), Roy MacLaren (Canada), Mike Moore (New Zealand) and Supachai Panitchpakdi (Thailand).
Ambassadors Celso Lafer of Brazil and William Rossier of Switzerland, who have been set the task of conducting consultations to reach a consensus on the election, reported Wednesday to the informal meeting of the General Council on their progress.
They said they had consulted, in meetings or contacts, 70 heads of delegations, representing 90 members between 29 Oct, and 2 and 4 November, and a second round of consultations on 24-26 November (after all four candidates had informally met the General Council members and made their presentations and answered questions).
Lafer and Rossier said a large majority of the members preferred decision-making by consensus, and that the deadline set by the General Council should be adhered to.
While the depth of support for each of the four is not the same, and there are differences, this is not a definite finding and a certain number of the delegations have not been able to inform Lafer and
Rossier of their authorities position on the four.
Trade diplomats later said this seemed to be a reference to the US and the EU, who are thus holding up the selection.
Some trade diplomats, speaking on condition of non-attribution, said their assessment was that at this moment, in terms of the first and second preferential choices, Supachai was leading with Abuyoub as the second ranking. Some of the publicly announced support from regions, they said, seem to be related to expectations of deputies being chosen from the region.
The US, was privately said to be leaning or supporting Moore, while the EU members are divided between Supachai and Abuyoub, but with the UK preferring Maclaren.
But this is speculation, and the final selection could depend on many other considerations, they said.
Lafer and Rossier told the informal meeting Wednesday that they would pursue the consultations, but that at this point they had no indication to think that the consultations would not lead to conclusions to enable the Council to elect the Director-general latest by mid-December.
The WTO spokesman, Keith Rockwell, told the media that reading between the lines, there is clearly "a cautious degree of optimism on reaching a consensus" within the agreed time frame.
But at Wednesday's meeting, perhaps to put some pressure on the US and EC to convey their views and not try and exercise a veto, Egypt's Amb. Mounir Zahran and Pakistan's Amb. Munir Akram said that while they too would prefer a decision by consensus, if necessary they should vote as envisaged by the WTO's articles.
In 1995, when Ruggiero was finally chosen, there was a secret ballot conducted by Amb. Kesavapani of Singapore (as Chairman of the WTO General Council) and Amb. Zahran of the GATT Contracting Parties, and Ruggiero's election by consensus was made official on the basis of this secret vote.
Zahran and Akram said if necessary there should be a similar vote, and the election should not held up.
The WTO General Council is to meet on 10 December, and if necessary, it could be 'suspended' till the next week (before the xmas adjournments) to complete the selection/election, trade diplomats said.