Minister Bettel Highlights WTO Importance for Trade Relations

Luxembourg’s Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Xavier Bettel, participated in the meeting of the informal Foreign Affairs Council in training “Trade”, which was held on Tuesday 23 January 2024 in Brussels.

The informal meeting allowed trade ministers to discuss the thirteenth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO), as well as issues related to open strategic autonomy. The Luxembourg Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, Defence, Cooperation and Foreign Trade confirmed that a working dinner with the Director General of the WTO, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, as well as a working lunch with the President of the International Trade Committee of the European Parliament, Bernd Lange, were also on the agenda.

Minister Bettel emphasised the importance of preparing well for the next WTO Ministerial Conference in Abu Dhabi aiming to achieve the expected results. In this context, close cooperation with our international partners will be essential, he stressed. Minister Bettel highlighted that the WTO is more important than ever: “The WTO remains the best guarantor of balanced trade relations and stands in the way of protectionism. We must therefore redouble our efforts and build bridges to identify a realistic package so that the multilateral trading system emerges strengthened from this ministerial."

The minister thanked the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the EU for continuing the work on open strategic autonomy that the Spanish Presidency had launched. The minister stressed that the EU must strengthen its resilience, recalling that a clear, coherent and harmonised legal framework within the Union allows the EU to act more resolutely internationally. Finally, Minister Bettel emphasised the importance of the internal market, thus welcoming the request addressed to Enrico Letta to draft an independent report on the internal market.