EU urges banana deal
The European Union has urged Latin American nations to agree to a banana deal and end the world’s longest-running trade row. a and the EU are negotiating a definitive deal to cut banana import duties.
South and Central American countries have filed a string of successful cases against the EU’s executive Commission at the World Trade Organisation.
Brussels is also trying to find a financial aid package for banana producers in the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group to compensate them for any losses due to tariff cuts. ACP nations say duty cuts on competing Latin fruit will hurt their own protected imports.
Summit nears end
Caricom leaders were pushing ahead with devising a road map for a coordinated response to the global financial downturn on the final day of their summit in Belize.
Caricom secretary General Edwin Carrington said it was the greatest such crisis many had experienced.
He said two of the region’s most important foreign exchange earning sectors — tourism and remittances were down. The host Prime Minister, Dean Barrow, announced that Belize will join Barbados and Guyana in making the Caribbean Court of Justice a final court of appeal, replacing the British Privy Council.
He said: “I commend the merit of the court as a critical lynchpin of our (integration) movement.”
