EU governments have drawn their initial battlelines over future banana policy, potentially complicating a battle for EU market access between Latin America and Europe's former colonies, officials said on Tuesday. Reviving memories of a bitter 1990s trade dispute that Brussels lost, the EU has now opened negotiations over how much to charge non-EU growers to send their fruit into its lucrative markets. The talks will take many months and will not be easy.
After losing the "banana wars", the EU pledged to scrap its complex quota/tariff system and move to tariff-only by 2006.
Two weeks ago, the European Commission - which negotiates the EU's trade policy - said its preferred duty was 230 euros per tonne, well above the current basic 75 euros.
The Commission keeps EU states informed throughout all trade talks and consults them again when a deal is within sight. On banana tariffs, the EU-25 is split down the middle, as shown by recent meetings of national trade and agriculture experts.
The Commission would be unlikely to shift its stance if it was criticised by just a few disgruntled countries in the bloc. But this could change if it ran into a wall of opposition.
Many countries have rallied around a report recently written by Sweden, which calls for a tariff no more than the current 75-euro base level. Sweden's national consumption of bananas is way above the EU per capita average.