The Republic of Moldova has forwarded to the World Trade Organization the name of Tudor Ulianovschi as a candidate for the Director-General post. Mr. Ulianovschi is a former Minister of Foreign Affairs, a former Moldovan Ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein and a former Permanent Representative to the WTO.
Moldova, a land-locked country in Eastern Europe between Romania and Ukraine, became a Member of the WTO on July 26, 2001. The bulk of its trade is with the Russian Federation, other parts of the former Soviet Union and the European Union. Moldova has been working to become part of the European Union and has an Association Agreement with the EU that was fully implemented on July 1, 2016.
Mr. Ulianovschi joins Jesus Seade (Mexico), Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (Nigeria) and Abdel-Hamid Mamdouh (Egypt) who previously were nominated by their governments. WTO Members have until July 8 to put forward nominations.
Moldova is a lower middle-income country as classified by the World Bank with a small population (2.7 million) and small total GNI ($11.44 billion). It is unclear whether the addition of Mr. Ulianovschi will affect whether one or more candidates from existing EU countries or from the United Kingdom are put forward or whether Mr. Ulianovschi will be the sole European candidate. It is assumed one or more EU-country candidates will in fact be forwarded in the next several weeks.
Similarly, there is speculation that candidates from Asia (Japan, Republic of Korea) and/or Oceania (Australia, New Zealand) may be put forward. So the total number of candidates is likely to continue to grow in the coming days making the completion of a selection process before the end of August less and less likely.
Mr. Ulianovschi’s biography as forwarded to the WTO is embedded below.
bio_mda_eIn other news about the first three candidates, a subscription service, Inside U.S. Trade has published articles based on interviews with Jesus Seade and with Abdel-Hamid Mamdouh. Inside U.S. Trade’s World Trade Online, June 10, 2020, “Seade says he can be an effective, creative facilitator as director-general”; June 15, 2020, “Egypt’s Mamdouh: WTO needs to find its ‘common purpose’ again”. Foreign Affairs on April 30, 2020 published an article by Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala addressing the COVID-19 pandemic, “Finding a Vaccine Is Only the First Step, No One Will Be Safe Until the Whole World Is Safe,” https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2020-04-30/finding-vaccine-only-first-step.