The European Union and Latin America have so far failed to reach an agreement to end the latter’s long-running dispute over Europe’s banana import tariff regime, despite months of renewed negotiations.
Recent talks held at the World Trade Organisation’s headquarters in Brussels ended with out a deal to reduce the controversial import tax as the EU refused to sign a document that was not linked to future WTO trade negotiations, according to Leopoldo Cologán, president of the Association of European Banana Producers (Apeb).
Mr Cologán told Spanish daily ABC that EU negotiators wanted to avoid the risk that the tariff could be subject to possible further decreases at future rounds of WTO trade talks.
Any agreement between the two sides would also have to be acceptable to the US, he said, adding that Latin American producers were now set to meet to agree a common position and were yet to respond on whether they would meet the European demands.
The European Union’s agriculture minister Mariann Fischer Boel told a press conference in March that ending the ongoing EU-Latin American banana dispute could be “desirable” for all parties involved, although not at any cost.
The tariff, which exempts ACP bananas, currently stands at €176 per tonne, although EU negotiators are reported to have suggested a reduction to €136 per tonne by 2011.
