Brussels, 23/11/2005 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday, the Member State of the EU confirmed their differences of opinion on the level of customs duty to be implied to imports of bananas from Latin American countries as of 1 January 2006 (EUROPE 9071 on disagreements voiced by Coreper). At Wednesday's meeting of Coreper, several countries in the EU which import "dollar" bananas from the Latin American countries, including Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Malta, Slovenia and Estonia, opposed the European Commission's proposal of applying customs duty at a level of 179 EUR per tonne, a tariff which they feel is far too high. Germany, in particular, stressed that this dossier could end up undermining the EU's position at the WTO.
In the opposing camp, the producing countries in the EU (Spain, France, Greece, Portugal and Cyprus), supported by Italy, lent their support to the Commission's proposal. In order to obtain the support of the new Member States, the Commission proposed that they be offered a new "more advantageous" system as of 1 April 2006, to allocate licences for bananas from the ACP countries. Hungary has indicated that it could be persuaded to rally to the group of countries in favour of the new customs duty rate.
For their part, the producers from Latin America (Ecuador, Costa Rica, Colombia and Honduras, amongst others), are protesting at the imposition of a rate of customs duty which they feel is far too high, from January 2006. They are calling for the current system to be extended until a negotiated solution can be reached with the EU, to be agreeable to all parties.