EU and Latin America Put an End to the ‘Banana War’

Pascal Lamy

Yesterday the European Union (EU) and eleven Latin American countries signed in the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva, a “historical” agreement that formally closes the commercial conflict of banana, in a dispute that lasted more than two decades and damaged continental relations.

Pascal Lamy, general manager of WTO, along with 11 representatives of Latin America signed the agreement that files “eight pending process” in the conflict about banana with the EU. “This is a historical moment,” stated Lamy after closing one of the oldest and complex quarrels carried out by the WTO.

The pledge ended their negotiations in December of 2009 in the historical Geneva Agreement on Trade Bananas (GATB), which foresees that the EU reduces their import tariffs of the fruit from 176 Euros per ton to 114 Euros till 2017.

The ‘banana war’ brought years of conflict to the European Union and the Latin American exporters. This fight is one of the longest in the framework of the multilateral trading system after the World War II. AV