Mario Osava (for Inter Press Service News Agency) wonders who Brazil will support, now that its candidate Luiz Felipe de Seixas Correa is out of the running for WTO Director-General.
This is part of a longer piece on recent Brazilian foreign policy setbacks. Osava describes Seixas Correa's required withdrawal as the "biggest" of several recent foreign policy "blows" absorbed by Brazil. Then:
"...Up until now, Brazil has enjoyed considerable influence in the WTO, which makes the fact that this was the setting for such a crushing foreign relations setback especially surprising. Lamy and Cuttaree are both defenders of agricultural subsidies, which have always been the main target of Brazil's battles in the WTO.
Given that Brazil's own candidate is now out of the running, its backing in future rounds of voting should logically pass to Pérez de Castillo -- whose candidacy was upheld by the new leftist government that took office in Uruguay on Mar. 1 -- as a representative of Mercosur, who also has the support of Argentina (Paraguay is the fourth full member of this bloc).
But backing the Uruguayan candidate will be a bitter pill to swallow for Brazil, which put forward its own candidate, Seixas Correa, precisely as a means of opposing Pérez Castillo, whom it accused of having presented a proposal that ”favoured the wealthy countries” in September 2003, as chairman of the WTO General Council.
Pérez del Castillo's proposal, submitted to the WTO ministerial conference in Cancún, Mexico, was rejected by the majority of developing countries, with the end result being a breakdown in negotiations.
Nevertheless, refusing to support the Uruguayan candidate is not a viable alternative either, since it would weaken Brazil's position as one of the coordinators of the so-called Group of 20, an alliance of countries -- of which Uruguay is also a member -- opposed to the agricultural subsidies implemented by industrialised nations, to the detriment of the developing world..."
This is an interesting article, placing Seixas Correa's candidacy in a wider political context. The Director-General selection isn't taking place in a vacuum. External events (the choice of a World Bank president) affect it, and it has implications for other things:
"This does not bode well for Brazil's aspirations to U.N. Security Council permanent membership, while threatening its role as a leader or major player in a variety of political and trade negotiations, ranging from the forging of closer ties between South America and Africa and the Arab world to the Doha Round of negotiations in the WTO, initiated in November 2001."
Revised April 22. This was originally titled "A Brazilian Diplomatic Defeat" following the thrust of the Osava article. My interest is somewhat different, and I've retitled the post to reflect that.
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