U.S. seeks WTO panel to review EU’s banana import regime

U.S. seeks WTO panel to review EU’s banana import regime The United States has asked the World Trade Organization to set up a panel to review whether the European Union’s banana import regime fails to meet the EU’s WTO obligations.
   The United States alleges that the EU has not implemented the WTO rulings from a 1996 proceeding initiated by Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and the United States. That ruling said the EU’s banana regime discriminated against bananas originating in Latin American countries and against distributors of these bananas, such as the United States. The EU was under obligation to bring its banana regime into compliance with its WTO obligations by January 1999.
   Ecuador launched a similar WTO panel review on Feb. 23, and a compliance panel was formed in response to the request on June 15. Ecuador and the United States had been authorized once before by the WTO to take action against the EU for its failure to implement the 1996 rulings. The United States terminated that action after the EU committed to shift to a tariff-only regime for bananas by no later than Jan. 1, 2006.
   The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said that despite these commitments, the EU banana regime in place on Jan. 1, 2006 features a zero-duty tariff rate quota that is allocated only for bananas from African, Caribbean and Pacific countries. Bananas from Latin America do not have access to this duty-free tariff rate quota and are instead subject to a 176 euro-per-ton duty, the USTR said.
   “We share the concern of Ecuador and several other Latin American banana exporters regarding the continued existence of a discriminatory tariff rate quota in the EU’s current banana regime,” said U.S. Trade Representative Susan C. Schwab in a June 29 statement. “We are hopeful that this formal step (requesting a WTO panel) will facilitate the removal of that discrimination.”