“There is no denying the fact that we are not where we wanted to be by now,” WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy told officials assembled for a formal meeting of the WTO’s Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC) on Friday morning. But he assured delegates that efforts to wrap up the eight-year-old talks will continue unabated. “Nobody is contemplating dropping the ball,” he told the meeting. “Everyone is still very much committed to the mandate of the round and to its successful conclusion. That is the spirit which I have seen this week, and that is the most important message that you are sending to the world.” Lamy told delegates that the talks will now focus on “closing the gaps” in the negotiations, and that he will encourage officials to bargain “horizontally” across various areas of the talks. Such work will occur under the guidance of the chairs of the various WTO negotiating groups as well as in less formal meetings of WTO members “in variable geometry,” Lamy said. Throughout this process, Lamy assured the delegates, he will adhere strictly to the principles of transparency and inclusiveness to “ensure that all voices are heard.”

And so the Doha negotiations will continue - with little change, it seems, from the past several months. Some delegates appeared frustrated with the outcome of the stocktaking, even as they declared their commitment to forging ahead in the talks. Addressing the TNC after Lamy’s opening remarks, a delegate from one major emerging economy referenced Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. The United States has been unwilling to make concessions, the official claimed, and the interests of developing countries have been undermined as a result.

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