On Thursday 13 April, DG Trade at the European Commission published an information point. According to this information point, the volume of imports of bananas from Nicaragua into the EU overshot the alarm threshold set at 80% in the European stabilisation mechanism for bananas to reach a figure of 88.89%. This threshold triggers the temporary suspension of preferences granted within the EU/Central America free trade agreement.
According to this document, the volume of bananas imported from Nicaragua in 2017 was slightly more than 12,000 tons on 10 April. This is below the alarm threshold of 10,800 tons set out in the new banana stabilisation mechanism included in the multiparty free trade agreement between the EU/Colombia, Ecuador and Peru and the EU/Central America free-trade agreement, adopted on 20 February last (see EUROPE 11729). The volume for triggering the temporary suspension in trade preferences for bananas from Nicaragua was set at 13,500 tons.
The overall balance sheet published by the Commission demonstrates that for all the other countries, the volume of bananas imported into the EU since the beginning of 2017 is still well below the alarm threshold: 21.35% for Colombia; 23.8% for Ecuador; 29.91% for Guatemala; 3.73% for Honduras; 34.50% for Peru; 9.81% for Panama; 23.03% for Costa Rica and nothing for Salvador. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)