Ecuador has urged the European Union (EU) to settle their long and resentful dispute over banana exports to demonstrate its credentials on protectionism.

Ecuador is the world's biggest exporter of bananas and has spearheaded efforts by Latin American growers for a reform of the EU's banana regime in what has turned into the world's longest-running trade dispute.

The EU offers preferential access to its markets for the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, who are mainly former European colonies.

Under pressure from the WTO Brussels has tried to reform the system, but the Latin Americans say it is still unfair.

Eduardo Ledesma, executive director of the Association of Ecuadorean Banana Grower, told the Financial Times: "The EU must prove that it means what it says about leadership, openness and the need to avoid protectionism. Let Brussels put its money where its mouth is, starting with bananas.”

The two sides reached a deal on the sidelines of a meeting of ministers in July seeking a breakthrough in the WTO's Doha round.

But ACP countries and the EU's own producers in the French Caribbean and Spanish Canary Islands objected to the deal, and when the July talks collapsed the EU walked away saying it was linked to a broader Doha agreement, in contrast to the assertion of the Latin Americans that it was a separate pact.

Failure to resolve the banana row could block an overall Doha deal because the Doha proposals offer both slower tariff cuts on produce from poor developing countries like the ACP states and steeper cuts on tropical produce from countries like the Latin Americans.

In November, the WTO's top court ruled again against the EU in the dispute, and earlier this month Ecuador said it could exercise its right to impose trade sanctions on the European Union if Brussels did not settle the row.

"Ecuador's developing economy, which exports €670 million (£625.5 million) a year to the EU and contributes 210 million euros a year to EU coffers to help subsidise EU growers, is the biggest casualty of these repeat offences," Ledesma said.

Besides imposing trade sanctions, Ecuador could also challenge the controversial economic partnership agreements (EPAs) that Brussels is forging with developing countries to replace earlier illegal arrangements.

Topics