Pascal Lamy may have to hand off the completion of the Doha round of global trade talks to his successor.

Though he expects there could be breakthroughs by the end of the year, Lamy ends his second four-year term as the World Trade Organization's director-general in August.

The long-running Doha round of trade negotiations began in 2001, and Lamy officially declared an impasse in the talks in December 2011.