GENEVA, (Reuters) – The European Union and United States initialed a deal yesterday with Latin American, African and Caribbean nations ending a decades-old trade war over bananas.
The pact ends the world’s longest-running trade dispute and also removes a potential obstacle to a new deal to open global commerce in the World Trade Organisation’s 8-year-old Doha round. Final signature is expected to take place next year.
“I’m very happy to see the longest-running trade dispute finally solved,” said European Trade Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner. “History is being made today because this dispute has soured global trade relations for too long,” she told Reuters.
Under the deal, the EU — the world’s biggest importer of bananas — will cut the duty it applies to bananas from Latin American countries such as Ecuador and Costa Rica which have long complained of discriminatory treatment.
“With this agreement, once again we have the chance to return with more force to the European market,” Ecuador’s Deputy Trade Minister Julio Oleas told reporters. “Ecuador will not lose any of its rights once this deal comes into effect.”
The accord will also give aid of about 200 million euros ($300 million) to banana growers in certain African, Caribbean and Pacific countries.
These mainly former European colonies currently enjoy preferential treatment on exports to the EU and will see their relative advantage eroded under the deal.
They will still have duty-free access to the EU for their produce, but the aid package will help them adjust to greater competition from more efficient Latin American growers.
Bananas are a key export and economic cornerstone for many countries including Cameroon and Dominica.
Although the United States does not export bananas, it is a party to the deal because major distributors of the fruit Chiquita, Del Monte and Dole are U.S. corporations.
Ireland’s Fyffes is also an important distributor.
WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy, who played a discreet role nudging the tense negotiations towards a conclusion during the global trade body’s Nov. 30-Dec. 2 ministerial conference, welcomed the deal yesterday.
“I hope the same spirit of pragmatism, creativity and diplomacy will re-invigorate the Doha round negotiations,” he said in a statement. The agreement is good news for consumers in the European Union as well as banana producers in Latin America as it stands to increase supplies of cheap fruit.
Costa Rica’s ambassador to the WTO, Ronald Saborio, who led the negotiations for the Latin Americans, said the deal was a success for those poor countries who wanted increased trading opportunities from the Doha round rather than special treatment.
“There’s an important number of developing countries that want to have market access as a result of this round. This shows they can obtain the results they seek,” he told Reuters.
The deal will cut the tariff paid on bananas from Latin American countries in eight stages to 114 euros a tonne in 2017, from 176 euros now, with an initial cut to 148 euros on final signature of the deal but taking effect retroactively to yesterday’s initialing .
Because the deal must be approved by the EU’s 27 member states, requiring translation into 23 official languages, it may be six to nine months before signature is possible.
In return, Latin American banana producers and the United States will drop legal challenges to the EU over its banana regime, which has been repeatedly condemned by WTO courts for discriminating against the Latin American growers.
The Latin Americans will also not press for further cuts in banana duties in the Doha round.
The bananas pact will go into effect whether there is a Doha deal or not, but the phasing-in of the tariff cuts could be delayed for up to two years if there is no Doha deal by 2013.
An accompanying agreement, regulating the EU’s treatment of tropical products where the Latin Americans want faster and deeper cuts in tariffs, while ACP countries seek slower and less marked reductions, will be embedded in a future Doha deal.
The dispute, dating back to at least the 1957 Treaty of Rome founding the European Economic Community, the EU’s precursor, was finally resolved over the past few weeks in day after day of talks until late into the night, compared by one weary negotiator to “three-dimensional chess.”
