WTO Banana Dispute Enters Another Round

The World Trade Organization has agreed to take up a complaint filed by Ecuador late last year against the banana import trade rules imposed by the European Union (EU) at the beginning of 2006. The January 2006 rules set a single duty (tariff) of 176 euros per box of bananas imported into the EU from Latin America. Latin American governments have argued for a muchtariff of 75 Euros a ton. The new rules also set a quota for duty-free bananas that can be imported from former colonies duty-free.

While the current WTO complaint is over market share, the bigger issue impacting banana workers and small producers in the Caribbean is that the increased market competition in the previously highly-profitable EU market has lowered prices and profit margins, putting more pressure on banana companies to cut costs and to move (or threaten to move) production to African countries where no quota exists.

COLSIBA and the IUF have long predicted that the new EU regime would put downward pressure on wages, benefits and conditions on unionized plantations in Latin America.