The International Trade Committee (ITC) is recommending that Europe should help put an end to the world’s longest running trade dispute, by giving its final consent to the 2009 Geneva deal on banana trade tariffs.
According to a CMC report from Brussels, the ITC said that the European Parliament should approve the accord even though “this deal could not fully reconcile all parties’ legitimate interests.”
Under the 2009 deal on banana import tariffs, the European Union (EU) will gradually end its preferential treatment of banana exporters in African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. In exchange, Latin American countries have agreed to drop their complaints against the EU and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and not to seek further tariff cuts in the Doha round talks.
The deal will see the EU gradually cut its import tariff on bananas from Latin America in eight stages, from 176 euros (US$241) a ton to 114 euros (US$156) in 2017.
Bananas from the ACP countries will on the other hand continue to enter the EU market duty free. Furthermore, the main ACP banana producing countries are to receive help from the EU budget, up to 200 million euros (US$274.1million) to help them adjust to stiffer competition between producers.
