Jan 16, 1992

BRUSSELS, JANUARY 13 (IPS) – "Tariffication" proposals in the agricultural reform package, tabled for the Uruguay Round of trade talks under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) may conflict with European Community (EC) banana import plans for the 1993 European single market.

EC Agriculture Commissioner Ray MacSharry is currently putting the finishing touches to proposals to regulate banana sales post- 1992 when borders fall between the EC's twelve states.

EC officials said the proposals will try to satisfy European consumers, whilst guaranteeing a market share to EC domestic producers and those from African Caribbean and Pacific producer (ACP) countries, when the single European market is established.

They will also be designed to allow steady growth of Latin American banana imports into the EC. France (in its overseas departments) Portugal (Azores) Spain (the Canaries) and Greece all have their home-grown production.

Presently there is no EC Common Market in bananas. The United Kingdom and Italy import some ACP bananas duty-free under special arrangements laid down in the EC's Lome IV agreement (1990-2000) with the 69 ACP countries.

But Germany and some other EC states buy from Latin America, in spite of a 20 percent duty levied on the bulk of these imports.

ACP and EC producers fear that their smaller scale and more expensive operations would be overwhelmed by Latin American imports without EC market regulation after 1992. The Latin American bananas are cheaper and, in terms of colour and ripeness, are arguably easier marketed and better tasting.

One EC official said here Monday that the EC was considering a mixed system of "quotas and differing levels of tariffs" on all imports to regulate the market, which was the most popular option emerging amongst several on the table.

But such proposals may counter the "general approach" to tariffication adopted in the Dunkel draft agreement to resolve the long running differences in agriculture under the Uruguay Round, hinted the EC official.

Tariffication is one of the sectors under discussion in the current round of GATT talks reopened Monday. Latin American countries want to use GATT trade rules to defend them against any discrimination on their banana exports to the single 1992 market.

A meeting between Central American and Caribbean banana producer countries was held in Belmopan, Belize, on Saturday to discuss the EC's banana market plans.

There Costa Rica's Minister of External Trade said the aim of Central American countries was to find "a mechanism that is in accordance with international rules".