5:58 AM Nov 4, 1994
US FAULTS EU OVER BANANA LICENSING ISSUE
Geneva 3 Nov (TWN) -- The United States criticised the European Union Thursday, at a meeting of the Tokyo Round Committee on Import Licensing Procedures, over the EU's importing licensing system for banana imports under its EU-wide single market banana regime. The EU regime has allocated quotas for imports from the ACP countries and the Latin American countries. These are based on past imports of licensees from the different sources, and also from the EU member's overseas territories. Several of the US transnational corporations involved in the banana trade -- as intermediaries buying bananas from Latin American countries and exporting them to the European Union -- have been agitated over the procedures, and have instituted S.301 complaints to the US Trade Representative and the International Trade Commission. The US complained that the new licensing procedure had not been notified to the Committee (as required under the code), and that the new procedure was "blatant in its discrimination and totally contrary to both the letter and spirit of the GATT Importing Licensing Code". The US argued in the committee that the EU procedures violated the requirement of the Code (Art 1.3) that licensing procedures shall be neutral in their application and that (Art 3.a.) that licensing procedures for administration of quotas shall not have trade restrictive effects on imports beyond those caused by the imposition of restrictions themselves. The US said that the recent framework agreements concluded by the EU with some Latin American countries had done nothing to bring the procedures into conformity with GATT. The US urged the EC, "in the strongest possible terms" to bring the regime into conformity with the letter and spirit of its GATT/WTO obligations. The EU questioned the discussions in the Committee of a subject that had been discussed in the GATT Council (over the two banana panel rulings). The discussions in the Committee of the framework agreements, the EU said, was premature in that they had been reached in the context of the WTO and were in conformity with the WTO licensing requirements. Ecuador, speaking as an observer, complained that the EU's licensing requirements had added an additional levy of nine dollars per box of bananas and this had cost Latin American exporters some $200 million in extra charges in 1993, and had raised the prices to European consumers. Sixty percent of its banana exports, Ecuador said, was processed by its own firms, and thus Ecuador was speaking for its own interests and not that of the US (and its transnationals). No action was taken, the Committee merely taking note of these statements.