Spain has this week asked a tribunal of the European Parliament to annul a fine that the European Commission (EC) has imposed on banana producers in the Canary Islands for “irregularities” in the payment of subsidies.
The tribunal yesterday received the Spanish government’s appeal against the decision that was imposed by the EC over alleged irregularities in the Canaries banana sector’s declaration of the volumes of fruit sold between 2002 and 2004.
Brussels said it had imposed the “financial correction” to recover the 2 per cent of costs that it claimed were wrongly awarded during the years in question, according to news agency EFE.
But the Spanish government, which called the EC’s action “disproportionate”, alleged that the Commission had been mistaken to conclude that there had been irregularities in the figure of banana sales, claiming the Canaries had been justly awarded the subsidies.
