EU Signs Deal on Banana Imports, Ending Long-Running Trade Dispute

EU ambassadors this week signed an agreement with Latin American and U.S. officials to end “a 15-year dispute over EU banana imports,” according to a December 15, 2009, press release, which described the impasse as “the longest trade dispute in history.” The European Union has apparently agreed to “gradually cut its import tariff on bananas from Latin America from €176 per tonne to €114,” in addition to providing €200 million to African and Caribbean banana-exporting countries “to help them adjust to stiffer competition from Latin America.” In return, Latin American countries will “not demand further cuts” and the United States has consented to drop its World Trade Organization (WTO) complaint against Europe’s banana importation practices. “This dispute on bananas has soured global trade relations for too long,” stated EU Agriculture and Rural Development Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel, who noted that the accord was “well-balanced” and likely to further European objectives pertaining to “so-called ‘tropical’ and ‘preference erosion’ products and thus on the Doha Round,” a WTO trade negotiation round that aims to increase world trade. See The New York Times, The Telegraph and The Wall Street Journal, December 16, 2009.