BRUSSELS (Reuters):
European Union countries agreed on Tuesday to open up their wealthy markets fully to imports from former colonies with phased-in access for rice and sugar, but put off a decision on when to open the banana market.
The European Commission said the move would help reach new trade deals with nearly 80 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, including Jamaica, to replace current preferential arrangements that have been struck down by the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
"(We) are sending a very positive signal to our ACP partners at this very crucial phase of the negotiations," EU Commissioner Olli Rehn told a news conference. The current deals expire at the end of this year and talks have made little progress so far.
"After certain transitional periods with special treatment for a number of highly sensitive products, all ACP states shall be granted full duty-free and quota-free market access," EU development ministers said in a statement after a meeting.
The ministers decided to classify rice and sugar as highly sensitive products and to introduce a transition period before opening access to these EU markets.
But they disagreed over bananas, with producers France and Spain pushing for offering only phased-in access.
However, Britain, the Netherlands and Sweden pushed for a full opening of the market as soon as possible, diplomats said.
"The European Commission will make an evaluation and then later on recommend, according to developments, whether banana is a sensitive product or not," one EU diplomat said, quoting disputes at the WTO and recent reform of the EU's banana policy.
The EU and the ACP countries will meet on May 25 in Brussels to negotiate on the new trade deals.
Some ACP states, concerned about the extent to which the EU wants them to open up their economies to European imports, have said it would be hard for them to sign a deal in time.
The EU relies on local growers for some 20 per cent of its bananas, or some 800,000 tonnes a year. Nearly all this comes from Spain's Canary Islands and French overseas territories of Martinique and Guadeloupe.
BANANA IMPORTS
The EU has also come under pressure to allow in more bananas from non-ACP countries, such as Ecuador and Colombia.
The two Latin American states have challenged the EU's single import tariff of €176 per tonne for bananas - in force from January 2006 - at the WTO, saying it is too high and discriminates against Latin American exporters and producers.
Bananas are a sensitive issue for the EU, which gives preferential access to bananas from ACP producer countries.
ACP bananas enter the EU's lucrative markets free of duty, inside an annual quota of 775,000 tonnes anything shipped above that volume attracts the standard €176 duty.
The new tariff system was the deal struck at the WTO to end the 1990s "banana wars", which the EU lost to the United States and Ecuador, the world's largest banana exporter. The single tariff replaces a complex arrangement of duties and quotas.
