EU proposal to end banana trade dispute

The European Union has made a fresh proposal to Latin American banana producers in a bid to end a decade-old dispute over the bloc's banana import policies, sources close to the WTO said Monday. In the fresh proposal, the EU has proposed lowering its taxes on banana imports from Latin American countries to 114 euros per tonne by 2019, instead of 2016, prompting swift criticism from the producer nations.

Banana imports to the EU from Latin America are currently subject to taxes of 176 euros per tonne, while imports from mostly poor former European colonies in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific region enter the bloc tariff-free. As a result, Latin American exporters have been pushing for this barrier to be lowered.

The latest proposal would envisage lowered taxes but levied three years later than the 2016 deadline Brussels offered last July in a proposal made on the sidelines of negotiations between ministers for a world trade liberalization deal.

The EU has said the July agreement on bananas was tied to overall trade liberalisation negotiations at the World Trade Organisation. Since those talks collapsed, that agreement was therefore no longer valid, according to the EU.

However, Latin-American producers want the EU to honour the July agreement. "We will not accept the introduction of new elements and renegotiations to arrive at something that is completely different and disadvantageous compared to the balanced agreement concluded on July 27, 2008," Guatemala's ambassador Eduardo Sperisen-Yurt told AFP.

The world's largest banana exporters, Ecuador, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru and Venezuela, have all rejected the EU's argument and have threatened sanctions against the the bloc. Three of the largest producers with plantations in Latin America are US-based multinationals -- Chiquita, Del Monte and Dole.


Source: google.com


Publication date: 2/24/200