Date: Monday 24 November 2014
Time: 6.30-8pm
Venue: Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building
Speakers: Ignacio Garcia Bercero, Pascal Lamy
Chair: Ambassador Pekka Huhtaniemi

The EU's Chief Negotiator for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and a prominent former Director-General of the World Trade Organisation debate the implications of 'mega-regionals' for the future of multilateral economic governance. What are the prospects and modalities for the multilateralisation of arrangements such as the TTIP?

Ignacio Garcia Bercero is a Director in DG Trade of the European Commission. Since 2012 he has been responsible for overseeing EC activities in the fields of Neighbouring Countries, US and Canada as well as being the Chief Negotiator for the EU- India FTA. He coordinated the work of the EU-US High Level Working Group on Growth and Jobs and is the Chief Negotiator for the TTIP negotiations. Working at the European Commission since 1987, from 2005 until 2011 he worked in the areas of Sustainable Development, Bilateral Trade Relations (South Asia, South East Asia, Korea, EuroMed and the Middle East). He was also the Chief Negotiator for the EU-Korea and EU-India Free Trade Agreements. Before that, he worked in the areas of WTO Dispute Settlement, and Trade Barriers Regulation. In the period leading to the launch of the DDA negotiations, he was working on overall coordination of WTO Policy and was Chief Negotiator on Trade and Competition. During the Uruguay Round, he followed, inter alia, negotiations on Safeguards, GATT Articles, Functioning of the GATT and Trade and Environment. He has also been posted in the EU Delegation to the United Nations in New York. He has written several papers and publications on the subjects of Trade Laws, GATT and WTO System, Safeguard Measures, Trade and Competition, DSU Reform and Dispute Settlement in European FTAs. Mr Garcia Bercero has a Law Degree from the Law Faculty of Universidad Complutense, Madrid and a Master of Laws Degree (with Distinction) from University College, London.

Pascal Lamy served two consecutive terms as General Director- of the World Trade Organization (WTO) from September 2005 to August 2013. A committed European and member of the French Socialist party, he was Chief of Staff for the President of the European Commission, Jacques Delors from 1985 to 1994. He then joined the Credit Lyonnais as CEO until 1999, before returning to Brussels as European Trade Commissioner until 2004. Mr Lamy holds degrees from HEC School of Management, the Institut d’Etudes Politiques (IEP) and the Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA). He currently shares his activities between the think tank Notre Europe – Jacques Delors Institute, the presidency of the World Committee on Tourism Ethics, the presidency of the Oxford Martin School Commission for Future Generations, the vice-presidency of the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS), his participation to the Global Ocean Commission and UNAIDS as well as different subjects related to international affairs. He is also President of the Board of Directors of the Musiciens du Louvre of Grenoble MDLG (Orchestra of Marc Minkowski), member of the Board of Directors of the Fondation nationale des Sciences politiques and the Thomson Reuters Founders Share Company, member of the Advisory Board of Transparency International and member of the board of Transparency International France, affiliate Professor at HEC and Strategic Advisor of the Simone Veil Governance Center for Europe (Humboldt-Viadrina Governance Platform, formerly Humboldt-Viadrina School of Governance, Berlin). Pascal Lamy is author of various books and reports on global governance, Europe and international trade. His latest publications are: Oxford Martin Commission: Now for the long term, 2013; The Geneva Consensus (Cambridge University Press, 2013); Quand la France s’éveillera (Odile Jacob, 2014). In a recent poll casted by the British magazine Prospect (April 2014), Pascal Lamy is in the top 50 of the world’s leading thinkers.

Pekka Huhtaniemi is currently the Finnish Ambassador to the United Kingdom, having assumed that role in June 2010. During the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations, he served as Minister Counsellor and Deputy Permanent Representative to the GATT in the Permanent Mission of Finland, Geneva. He has held a number of other senior positions in the Finnish Government in a diplomatic career spanning over 40 years, including: Director General at the Department for External Economic Relations of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs; Special Adviser to the Prime Minister on economic and international affairs; Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Finland, Geneva; and Under-Secretary of State, Ministry for Foreign Affairs.

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