Arancia González Laya said she’s still the head of the Spanish Foreign Ministry.
Spanish Foreign Minister Arancha González Laya called «interesting speculation» the information that she might take over the post of Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The minister made a statement to that effect on Tuesday in an interview with the Cadena SER radio station.
Earlier, the Bloomberg agency quoted the German magazine WirtschaftsWoche as saying that the European Union would support Gonzalez Laja’s candidacy for the post of CEO of the WTO. Commenting on this information, she said: «This is very interesting speculation, I’m the head of the [Spain’s] Foreign Ministry».
On May 14, WTO Director General Roberto Azevedu said he would resign on August 31, without waiting for the expiration of his term in 2021. In an interview with Bloomberg agency, he said that he decided to resign due to downtime caused by the spread of coronavirus. Azevedu added that the procedure for the election of a successor will begin in December 2020, when the «candidates» will be «named».