The EU's former trade commissioner, Mr Pascal Lamy, has been chosen to head the World Trade Organisation.

The French Socialist and former civil servant, who threw his hat in the ring soon after finishing as commissioner last year, was confirmed as the next head of the multilateral organisation yesterday.

The trade body's general council is expected to finalise the decision later this month, meaning Mr Lamy will take over from the current head of the WTO, Thailand's Mr Supachai Panitchpakdi, in September.

The European Commission welcomed the decision.

A spokeswoman for Peter Mandelson, the current EU trade commissioner, said "he's uniquely qualified to lead the WTO at this decisive moment".

She added that completing the current round of WTO talks is "top of our priorities and ... is the most important rendezvous we have quite soon in view of the Hong Kong ministerial in December".

Called the Doha round and intended to open up market access for developing countries, it was supposed to have been concluded by the beginning of this year. But negotiations came unstuck at a WTO meeting in 2003 when wealthy countries lobbied for discussions on opening government procurement to foreign competition while poor countries stuck to their demands for better market access for their agricultural goods.

The Frenchman beat off competition from Uruguayan trade advisor Carlos Perez del Castillo, who yesterday withdrew his nomination after it became clear he had not gathered as much support among the WTO's 148 members.

Mr Lamy, who was strongly backed by the EU, will have to use all his diplomatic skills in his new post as the main part of the job consists of trying to forge consensus between the organisation's disparate members.

However, he has gathered some reputation for being able to work well with both the US and developing countries.

During his time as trade commissioner, Mr Lamy was known for the rapport he struck up with his US counterpart at the time, Bob Zoellick - fostering an EU-US trade rapport which has since broken down.

When he was representing the EU at Doha in 2001, he managed to win over some of the developing countries who had reservations, by being more open to concessions by the bloc on agriculture.

However, many suspicions still remain among these countries - particularly in South America - about a European heading the organisation.

These are reinforced as the EU drags its feet over reform of its protectionist sugar subsidies regime and while its Common Agricultural Policy remains firmly in place.

Peter Sutherland, the first director-general of the WTO, said Mr Lamy was " a first-rate negotiator."