Ruggiero, Renato

▪ 1996

      When the dust finally settled in a three-way regional struggle to determine the first director-general of the newly established World Trade Organization (WTO), Renato Ruggiero, a longtime Italian diplomat, assumed the post on May 1, 1995. The successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the WTO was cast as the United Nations of world trade, with considerably greater scope and power than the "provisional" accord that had been the centre of world trade negotiations for more than four decades. By the time the WTO officially came into being on Jan. 1, 1995, three candidates remained serious competitors for the post of director-general. South Korean economist Kim Chul Su was favoured by many Asian countries; former Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari was championed by the U.S. government; and Ruggiero was the choice of most European governments. Even when Salinas' candidacy was scuttled by a political scandal, the U.S. remained leery of Ruggiero because it feared he would support protectionism. The U.S. agreed to endorse him only after winning the concession that Ruggiero would serve a single four-year term and be succeeded by a non-European.

      Ruggiero was born on April 9, 1930, in Naples and earned (1953) a law degree from the University of Naples. He entered the Italian diplomatic service in 1955 and was posted to São Paulo, Brazil; Moscow; Washington, D.C.; and Belgrade, Yugos., before taking on a series of European Community (EC) assignments, beginning in 1969. In 1978 he took the first of several senior posts in the Italian Foreign Ministry. Following a stint (1980-84) as Italy's permanent representative to the EC, Ruggiero rose to the post of minister of foreign trade. During his tenure (1987-91), he helped plan a number of Group of Seven economic summits and played an important role in Italy's involvement in the European Monetary System. After leaving public service in 1991, he took a position with the automaker Fiat.

      Notwithstanding the initial fears of the U.S. government, Ruggiero was seen by many as a genuine free trader who was determined to prevent a slide into the sort of protectionism that had characterized European economic leadership for so long. Taking the reigns of the 125-member WTO, he was faced with implementing a 27,000-page treaty, comprising 28 major provisions. Ruggiero, the tenacious "Rocky" of the British press, sought to establish a sound framework for an organization that he hoped would eventually replace bilateral economic brinkmanship with enforcement of multilaterally established rules of trade. Additionally, he was committed to a global economy in which less developed countries were seen as equal partners. (JEFF WALLENFELDT)

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