A WTO dispute panel has once again ruled against the EU’s tariffs on imported bananas, trade officials said, backing a complaint from the US. The confidential ruling, far from the first against Brussels’ banana import regime, was issued to the two parties last week.
The EU’s preferential market access for bananas from its former colonies in the African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) group has been the subject of numerous disputes dating back over a decade, pitting Brussels against the US and several Latin American countries.
This most recent dispute concerned the EU’s introduction in 2006 of a tariff of 176 euros ($258) per tonne along with a 775,000 tonne duty-free quota for ACP bananas (see BRIDGES Weekly, 22 November 2006). The EU lost a similar dispute with Ecuador last December.
The US itself is not a significant exporter of bananas to the EU. However, several US-based multinationals, such as Chiquita, have plantations in Latin America whose bananas are affected by the EU tariffs.
Michael Mann, a spokesperson for EU Agriculture Commissioner Marian Fisher Boel, criticised the WTO “for taking a ‘purely formalistic approach that found against something that doesn’t exist anymore.’” This was in reference to the fact that bananas from ACP states now receive quota-free access to the European market, whether under the EU’s economic partnership agreements signed late last year, or as exports from a least-developed country.
The panel’s decision could potentially open the door to US retaliation in the form of extra duties on European goods. The EU will be able to appeal the ruling.
ICTSD Reporting; “WTO Rules against EU Banana Tariffs,” ASSOCIATED PRESS, 8 February 2008; “Caribbean-EU Trade Pact Comprehensive, Innovative,” DOMINICAN REPUBLIC NEWS & TRAVEL INFORMATION SERVICE, 23 December 2007; “Senegal Refuses to Sign EU-ACP Trade Pact: Report,” EU BUSINESS, 3 December 2007.