World Trade Organization director-general Pascal Lamy is clearly not one to admit defeat.
After a week of “stock-taking” in Geneva to figure out if WTO negotiations, now in their ninth year, have a future, he not surprisingly decided they do even though talks have been stalled since mid-2008.
“While there is certainly disappointment that we are not closer to our goal, I have not detected any defeatism,” he told the WTO trade negotiations committee gathered in Geneva March 26, according to a transcript issued from WTO headquarters. “Quite the contrary.”
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He even invoked the spirit of legendary British admiral Horatio Nelson who before the pivotal Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 said: “England expects that every man will do his duty.”
Lamy saw a parallel. “The name of the game now is closing the gaps and paraphrasing the words of Admiral Nelson, the WTO expects every member will do its duty in the tough months ahead of us.”
He said talks will continue based on the chair’s texts now on the table, including an agricultural text that would open markets but cut supply management and end the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly by 2013.
