BRUSSELS, (Reuters) – Europe must slow down planned cuts in banana import duties to alleviate the socio-economic hardships that market liberalisation will mean for its former colonies, Africa’s top banana exporter states said yesterday.
EU regulators have been negotiating with Latin America’s leading banana suppliers towards an agreement that would gradually reduce import tariffs through to 2016 and put an end to the “banana wars” that have dragged on since the 1990s.
That has given banana producers in the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group — largely former colonies of Britain, France and Portugal — a major headache.
These producers, used to years of duty-free access to the lucrative EU market, fear Europe will become even more swamped by cheaper fruit from Latin America, which already supplies some 80 percent of EU banana imports.
The latest offer from Brussels has been rejected by ACP producers, especially leading exporter countries Cameroon and Ivory Coast, which want smaller tariff cuts over a longer period.
“For us, it’s really too quick and too low (a tariff),” Anatole Ebanda Alima, Europe delegate for the Cameroon Banana Associa-tion ASSOBACAM said. “It doesn’t give us time to adjust; for certain countries it would mean saying goodbye to bananas.”
“The ACPs have made a proposal … a reduction to 150 euros ($203) … and maintain that level for a certain number of years and compensate that with accompanying measures to allow them (farmers) to adapt. We have proposed a freeze of four years.”
