New European Union trade commissioner Peter Mandelson has already placed bananas high on his agenda, after less than a month in his new post.
He met with African-Caribbean-Pacific country representatives at last week’s EU-ACP ministerial meeting in Brussels and assured ACP growers’ conditions for their preferential access would not be changed.
“We are entering into the next, and I hope final, chapter of the ongoing story of bananas and of the EU’s preferential arrangements for ACP access,” said Mandelson. “We have all known that 2006 would bring a tariff-only regime and we have now started to prepare for this. My predecessor, Pascal Lamy, announced the proposed level for the most-favoured-nation import tariff to you a month ago.
“I have taken note of the concerns since expressed, whether coming from Latin American producers saying that the tariff is too high, or from you that it is too low. But I can tell you that the tariff is our neutral translation of the protection at the border that is presently provided by the quota system.
“There should be no losers and no winners in this switch to a tariff-only system; it should not in itself change the current shares in the EU market,” he said.
“I stress: we are not changing the conditions for preferential access for your trade. This access will be covered as part of our joint general market access discussions within Economic Partnership Agreement negotiations. It is not on the table in Geneva.”
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