Brussels, 30/11/2000 (Agence Europe) - Bananas will not be on the menu of the General Council on Monday, and will probably not be on the agenda of the ministerial discussions before 19 December, when the next Agriculture session takes place. The work on a transitional quota solution of the "first come-first served" kind continues for now without tangible results at the level of the European experts and in the context of almost incessant consultation with the trading partners concerned. This solution continues to give rise to reservation, doubts and fears, mostly on the part of Member States traditionally concerned by Latin-American bananas, despite the hopeful convergence reached by the Fifteen in October on a settlement along these lines of the transatlantic dispute, one of the oldest and most complex disputes (see EUROPE of 11/10, pp.8-9).
National experts again largely questioned the compatibility of the system proposed with the rules of the World Trade Organisation, during an ad hoc meeting of the Council's working group on bananas. Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark and Austria, among others, wonder how one can be sure that reform of this regime, already twice condemned, will really be the last and that it will not give rise to any further challenge. Their experts also referred to the more mitigated reaction of the third countries concerned, mainly the United States, which remains torn between the hostility of one of its multinationals (Chiquita Brands International) and the approval of another (Dole Food Company), while the ACP countries remain unsatisfied and the European Parliament itself calls for more preferential suppliers. Under such circumstances, how can the Union be prevented from coming up against yet another stumbling block? This was repeated by several of the Fifteen, making their acceptance of the project contingent upon additional guarantees on all points mentioned and, from this, also contingent upon the guarantee that there would be direct transition to a tariff only regime (the final regime whose introduction is not foreseen until 2006) if the transitional "first come, first served" solution "does not work", state sources close to discussions. And yet it is known that other Member States are still far from being in phase with a commitment along these lines. The experts nonetheless hope to make the debate move forward when they meet next week, thus allowing the technical work to move forward within the Special Agriculture Committee, in preparation for the Council on 19 December.