The WTO has postponed the meeting scheduled for next week.
Geneva, Switzerland:
The WTO is postponing a meeting next week where members were to try to choose a new leader, but with little chance of success after Washington blocked the preferred candidate, AFP learned on Friday.
The 164 member states of the World Trade Organization were to meet on Monday to choose between two remaining candidates for the head of the organization in crisis.
But the head of the selection committee set up to help with the process told members on Friday that the meeting should be postponed.
“It has come to my attention that for reasons such as the health situation and current events, delegations will not be able to take a formal decision on November 9,” General Council Chairman David Walker said in a statement. seen by AFP.
“I therefore postpone this meeting until further notice during which I will continue to consult with delegations,” he added.
The WTO’s selection committee, known as the troika, has held months of consultations with members to find a replacement for Roberto Azevedo, who resigned as director-general in August a year earlier than expected .
After gradually reducing the initial slate of eight candidates, the troika last week named former Nigerian finance and foreign minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as the most likely to gain the consensus needed to take the helm. .
But hopes that the final step would be a simple automatic approval exercise were dashed when a country, the United States, announced its intention to back South Korea’s Trade Minister Yoo Myung-hee.
The US announcement threw the WTO leadership hunt into uncertainty.
In recent days, many observers have pointed out that member states are unlikely to agree on a new director general as long as Donald Trump, perhaps the most ardent critic of the WTO, remains in the White House and had called for a delay.
“They are right, it’s a good thing,” a European diplomat in Geneva told AFP after announcing the postponement of the meeting.
In theory, members could reject the principle of consensus and go to a vote, but such a procedure has never been tried in practice in the WTO.
In 1999, when members were unable to unanimously choose who should have four years at the helm, they opted to give the top two picks a term of three years each instead of resorting to a vote. .
