Brussels, 06/12/2000 (Agence Europe) - The new banana import regime that the European Union is considering providing itself with continues to raise concerns and protests among supplier countries. The concert that was heard last week was, however, rather discordant, whereas a polemic was in full swing between the world's two largest … and rival … producer countries.
"Competition will rage (between Latin American countries) on the basis of the lowest prices, and Costa Rica will have difficulties in keeping up its social, environmental and health policies", if the reform being envisaged materializes, the country's Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Rodriguez, predicted when visiting Brussels last week. The world's second largest producer has difficulty in understanding that the "Union places emphasis on its cooperation policy (with Central America) on human development, while placing the very same thing in danger" with this project. As, he said, "the new system will place the power in the hands of traders and it will be our producers who will foot the bill". Costa Rica, that has so far benefited from a quota of 23% of the Community market, does indeed believe that the new rules will encourage multinationals to turn towards suppliers who produce cheaper bananas, to the detriment of the social efforts it has been making. Its own production is more expensive than that of Ecuador, as Costa Rican producers receive on average four times higher salaries (448 euro against 114), sources in San Jose emphasise.
Quito's reply stated: "We want to hide the inefficiency of out competitors by asserting they pay their agricultural workers four times more than in Ecuador, but the reality indicates that in the developing countries the only ones to pay such a salary are the coca leaf farmers, because cocaine is the third world product that pays the best price on the rich country markets". Alfredo Pinoargote Ambassador to Brussels had anticipated the reaction, by explaining that the abolition of quotas by the supplier countries results in their inability to tune their violins, which would have pushed "the countries that have benefited from these illegal quotas (to) decide to make a diplomatic offensive that could project a bad image of the Ecuadorian banana industry". He also underlined that: i) Ecuadorian production is 100% in the hands of more than five thousand Ecuadorian farmers, not one hectare is farmed by transnational companies, ii) the marketing is 70% controlled by Ecuadorian companies, the remainder being mainly sent on to the United States, iii) Ecuador is the only producer country to have national operators (while "the trade policy of our competitors depends upon decision made by transnationals").
Far from this argument, but also concerned, the Caribbean exporters have warned against the establishment of a "first come, first served" mechanism rather than that linked to historical performance of trade, which they continue to favour. "Most of the parties concerned - including the United States - prefer the latter systems and nearly all could accept the principal", asserts the European spokesperson, Gordon Myers. According to him, the divergences that remain over the "important details" can be reabsorbed "on a equitable basis that guarantees the maintaining of access for the Caribbean and other ACP countries". On the other hand, the formula considered does not allow to answer the vital need of the Caribbean industry to have an assured success and viable prices" and "would provoke the ruin of the economies of the small Caribbean countries that heavily depend on their banana exports towards the EU, as would occur with the alternative proposal for an exclusively tariff based system", he warned. Also recalling, in view of the "key meeting" that will take place on 18 December between the leaders of the EU and the United States in Washington, 'It falls down to the two parties to find a solution in accordance with the undertakings vis-à-vis the Caribbean as much as to the WTO".