EU commission to seek new negotiating mandate on bananas

Wednesday, May 19, 2004

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AFP): The EU executive commission is Wednesday to seek a new mandate from EU ministers to negotiate an end to a quota system governing banana imports and its replacement by customs tariffs starting in January 2006, EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy said here Tuesday.

"We are going to announce tomorrow that we are asking for a mandate from the (ministerial) council to negotiate a banana import regime," Lamy told AFP.

"We are committed to negotiations at the World Trade Organization on a system that is based on tariffs and no longer on quotas, which would take effect January 1, 2006."

Following a dispute at the WTO with the United States on the banana trade, the EU in 2000 was obliged to modify its import practices, which were deemed by the WTO to have discriminated against bananas produced by US companies based in Central America.

The quota system offered privileged access to European markets for bananas produced in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP) region.

The mandate now sought by the commission would allow it to negotiate a system under which banana exporting countries would be offered tariff protection according to the most-favored-nation trading principle, Lamy said, adding that it would retain specific advantages for ACP states.

  Back...

  Most popular articles: viewed, printed and e-mailed

  Printable version