BANANA WAR ENDED.

Caribbean banana growers have cautiously welcomed an agreement between the United States and the European Union to end a long-running trans-Atlantic banana war, reports CANA-Reuters (April 11, 2001):

The two sides said the U.S. will lift US$191 million of sanctions on EU exports under the agreement to end the eight-year dispute over EU banana import rules which Washington says favors growers in EU territories and former colonies over Latin American producers and U.S. marketers;

The Caribbean Banana Exporters Association, representing growers in the Windward Islands, Jamaica, Belize and Suriname, said the EU decision to scrap plans for a "first come, first served" system of distributing banana import licenses would help small Caribbean growers survive;

"On the face of it so far it is welcome news," said CBEA European representative Gordon Myers. But he said the agreement, as he understood it so far, left crucial questions for Caribbean growers, including what long-term tariffs on Caribbean products would be. "What we don't know is the details, in which the devil, as you know, resides," he said;

Under the agreement, the U.S. will on July 1 suspend punitive duties imposed in 1999 after it won a World Trade Organization case against EU banana import rules. Quotas under the plan will secure a market share for a specific amount of bananas from African, Caribbean and Pacific developing nations that have close ties to the European Union. The EU has been trying to protect the interests of tiny Caribbean nations whose growers have said the loss of favored status in European markets could force them to turn to drug crops to make a living.