EU to appeal WTO ruling on banana import regime

The European Commission will appeal against a World Trade Organisation ruling that found the EU's import regime for bananas breaks international trade rules, it said in a statement.

A WTO panel found that Brussels was giving preferential treatment to bananas imported from Europe's former colonies, following a complaint from the US.

"The EC has notified the WTO that it will appeal the panel reports on the banana cases brought by Ecuador and the US," the Commission said. The Commission, the EU executive, negotiates foreign trade for the EU's 27 countries.

The US itself does not export bananas to the EU, but three of the biggest distributors with plantations in Latin America are US multinationals - Chiquita Brands International Inc., Del Monte Foods Co. and Dole Food Co.

The US, along with Latin American countries, has long complained that the EU banana import regime favours fruit suppliers in the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) country group: Mainly ex-colonies of Britain, France and Portugal.

"The Commission has devoted huge energy over recent months to finding a mutually agreed settlement to the long running dispute," the statement said, referring to a tariff deal struck with Latin America during WTO Doha Round negotiations last month that never came to fruition because the wider talks failed.

The EU has been at loggerheads with the Latin American exporters for over a decade because it offers preferential terms to exporters in former European colonies.

In January 2006, the EU replaced a complex system of import quotas and tariffs for bananas with a single-rate duty of €176 a tonne: A WTO agreement struck to end the 1990s "banana wars" which Europe lost to the US and Ecuador.

Before the new regime kicked in, Latin American exporters paid €75 per tonne, under quota, to get fruit into Europe. Anything over that faced a prohibitive duty of €680.