Canary Islands’ banana association Asprocan, together with Spanish agricultural organisations Coag, Asaja and Upa, has announced that it will hand out 20 tonnes of free fruit in Madrid tomorrow (12 March) to protest against the EU’s banana tariff concessions.
Banana producers are set to distribute fruit as part of the protest, which will take part in the Spanish capital’s central Puerta de Sol plaza from 9am to 4pm, to highlight the European Union’s agreement to lower its entry tariff for Colombian and Peruvian bananas.
The demonstration is the latest in a series of protests carried out by the Canaries banana sector since the EU approved a progressive reduction of the tariff in December last year, from the present €176 per tonne to €114 per tonne.
This has been followed, more recently, by agreements of association between Europe, Colombia and Peru to reduce the tariff level for the countries’ bananas still further – to €75 per tonne over the course of the next 10 years.
Asprocan, which has described the trade deals as “very prejudicial” for Canaries bananas, has slammed the Spanish government for what it described as a “lack of support” and a “failure to take steps” to alleviate pressure on a sector that provides 30 per cent of employment in the archipelago.
In the first two months of 2010, the association claimed that the Canaries banana sector had lost more than €24m, without taking into account damage caused by recent storms.
