Ecuador’s agriculture and trade ministers are reportedly seeking to meet with their counterparts from other Latin American banana producing nations in a bid to present a united counter-proposal to the EU to end Europe’s banana tariff system.
With the European Union’s proposal to Latin American exporters to reduce the current tariff level of €176 per tonne to €114 by 2019 having been rejected, Ecuador is now lobbying its peers to back a counter-proposal.
According to Ecuadorian daily El Comercio, the counter-proposal would ask the EU to reduce the tariff to €114 by 2016, which would bring the timescale into line with an earlier agreement between the two sides in July 2008.
Following two weeks of talks between representatives of Ecuador’s banana sector and Méntor Villagómez, the country’s ambassador to the EU, the Ecuadorian authorities are now attempting to garner support for the counter-proposal.
Eduardo Egas, Ecuador’s vice-minister of external trade, told the newspaper that the country was seeking to “exchange views with all the (Latin American) banana producing countries” to see if they can agree “a joint position that benefits and helps everyone”.
Mr Egas said that although he considered the EU to be “very inflexible” towards the idea of altering the proposal, he believed that a united front from all the Latin American producer nations could make successful negotiations possible.
