MEPs’ stand-off threatens deal over bananas

Date: 16/11/00

By Simon Taylor

A POLITICAL stand-off between MEPs and EU governments could scupper the best chance yet of ending the Union's long-running banana dispute with the US, warn diplomats.

Hopes are rising that French President Jacques Chirac and outgoing US President Bill Clinton could achieve a breakthrough at the EU-US summit on 18 December. But officials fear the European Parliament could effectively block a deal by refusing to endorse the Commission's revised proposals for reforming the import regime before that date.

The assembly's agriculture committee is calling for changes to the plan which, according to diplomats, would leave the EU's import system in breach of World Trade Organisation rules. Although the Parliament cannot force governments to accept its demands, the Union will not be able to change the regime until the assembly has formally given its views on the proposals.

Member states fear that if they refuse to accept the amendments called for by MEPs, the Parliament may withhold its opinion, preventing the Union from approving changes to make its system WTO-compatible.

But if governments go along with the assembly's wishes, the reformed regime will still fall foul of WTO rules.

The committee's rapporteur, French Socialist MEP Michel Dary, wants to reserve an exclusive quota for imports of fruit from member states' former colonies and overseas territories. But experts warn that this would continue to discriminate in favour of certain countries - a practice which the WTO has ruled illegal. "If the Parliament insists on this it will be an exclusive tariff for the African, Caribbean and Pacific [ACP] countries and the US will be able to attack it in the WTO," said one diplomat.

The committee is coming under intense pressure from both Paris and the Commission to back down. Chirac has lobbied Parliament President Nicole Fontaine on the issue and Agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler has urged the head of the committee, German Green MEP Graefe zu Bahringdorf, to soften its stance.

EU diplomats say striking a deal with the Parliament would boost the chances of ending the seven-year-old dispute because it would increase the pressure on Union governments to agree a common stance on the issue and present a united front in negotiations with Washington.

Member states are still divided over the proposals. Some, such as Germany and Sweden, want an immediate end to quotas which provide access to growers in overseas territories. But France and Spain are opposed to ending these quotas in 2006, as the Commission has suggested.

UK Socialist MEP Glenys Kinnock dismissed suggestions that the Parliament was playing politics. "It is unlikely that the Commission's proposal would be accepted anyway because all parties including the US and all the Latin Americans except Ecuador are opposed to it," she said.

Dary insists the changes he is proposing are essential for the Union to meet its commitments to ACP countries. "Europe has a common foreign policy and that is to protect the ACP," he said. "It is a question of humanity." But he stressed he was open to negotiation, saying: "I am not saying that this is the best thing but, until now, no one else's proposal has worked so we need to examine another way."

A political stand-off between MEPs and EU governments could scupper the best chance yet of ending the Union's long-running banana dispute with the US, warn diplomats.