EC Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan withdraws his name from consideration for WTO Director-General

An Bloomberg article last week indicated that the Irish Government would be nominating Phil Hogan as a candidate for position of next Director-General of the World Trade Organization.

Today, Commissioner Hogan issued a statement indicating that he would not be putting his name forward in light of the important trade issues facing the EU and the expected delays in completing the selection process which would require him to be absent for a considerable period from the EC Commissioner post. See Statement by Commissioner Phil Hogan on election of new WTO Director-General, 29 June 2020, https://ec.europa.eu/commission/commissioners/2019-2024/hogan/announcements/statement-commissioner-phil-hogan-election-new-wto-director-general_en. The statement is embedded below.

The announcement leaves the number of candidates at five (Jesus Seade Kuri from Mexico, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala from Nigeria, Abdel-Hamid Mamdouh from Egypt, Tudor Ulianovschi from Moldova, and Yoo Myung-hee from Korea). None of the candidates is from a developed country (as understood within the WTO). Some have suggested that the WTO has moved to an informal rotation between developed and developing Member candidates when selecting a Director-General. Since Roberto Azevedo is from a developing country (Brazil), following that logic, WTO members should, assuming well qualified candidates from both developed and developing countries, select a developed country candidate. Indeed the last four Directors-General have come from developed (New Zealand), developing (Thailand), developed (France), and developing (Brazil) countries. Others argue that selection should be from a geographic area that hasn’t held the Director-General position or hasn’t held the position recently. The WTO Members from Africa are stressing that view, and there are two candidates from African countries among the five. There is also interest in having a qualified woman take the Director-General position as there has never been a woman in the DG slot.

The nominating period ends at the close of business on July 8. It is not clear if some other European from the European Union will be nominated (e.g., Spain could nominate Arancha Gonzalez Laya, the current Spanish foreign minister; she has been mentioned in various press accounts as a possibility) or whether one or more nominations may yet come from other developed or developing countries. Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland from the developed world all have experienced current or past officials. The United States historically has not nominated individuals and will presumably not do so this time. There are many other Members who consider themselves to be developed who might also submit a candidate, though that seems less likely with the current group of candidates.

Today’s Financial Times provides its analysis of Commissioner Hogan’s withdrawal. See Financial Times, June 29, EU trade commissioner Phil Hogan abandons interest in WTO role, https://www.ft.com/content/f94683c0-5020-4570-8a14-85bb13016f6a.

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