WTO chief Pascal Lamy is self-admittedly the only non-negotiating party in the global trade deal and believes he should have taken his wife’s advice and gone on a long holiday after the failure of the mini-ministerial meeting in Geneva last month. But barely three weeks after the collapse of the Geneva meeting, Lamy is once again pushing key negotiators to agree for another meeting by the end of this year. Speaking to Jayant Singh, Lamy said that the hope of reviving the Doha round hinges on members realising that what they have on the table right now is a good package and they better grab it

After interacting with representatives from all member nations, do you sense that their desire to achieve an agreement is strong enough to supersede their individual political sensibilities and ambitions?

That’s what they say. That’s what they have always been telling me, including after the July (mini-ministerial in Geneva) flop, which is a bit surprising. Everyone wants to achieve the deal and they know that what is on the table at present is a good package. It would only be in their best interest to reach a consensus on that agreement.

Why is it that the WTO text allows for a provision on ‘trade-distorting subsidies’ when the very objective of the agreement is to enable free and fair multilateral trade?

It is a legacy of the previous trade rounds. Up until the Uruguay round, there wasn’t any discipline on trade distorting farm subsidies. There were, of course, disciplines that took into account industrial subsidies by the developed countries, but agricultural subsidies were not even considered till then.

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