Brussels, 26/01/2004 (Agence Europe) - On Monday, one day after an informal meeting with the 25 trade ministers of the enlarged EU, European Commissioner Pascal Lamy said that the EU supported Iraq's request to be given observer status at the World Trade Organisation (WTO). He said that he had submitted a proposal to the Council meeting, which had been accepted, to support Iraq's request to become a WTO observer at the General Council meeting in February 2004 because the Council believe it would be good for the Iraqi people and is a step towards Iraq actually joining the WTO. Lamy echoed the EU's leitmotif that it had always strongly supported requests by Middle East countries to be given observer status, like Iran and Syria, but that the United States unfortunately continues to oppose this.
Lamy explained that this attitude is fully independent of the EU's challenge to the selectivity of the US public tenders for the rebuilding of Iraq, in response to a reporter's question. He said that Iraq did not have any international commitments and the day it joined the WTO the question of whether it would support the agreement on public tendering would be an open question since this is a voluntary, multilateral agreement. For the moment, what the EU is doing is ensuring that the United States manage these contracts in line with the WTO's rules, in the light of information transmitted by the Member States, and this process is still underway, commented Lamy.