EU loses banana battle at WTO again

Brussels/Washington: The World Trade Organisation (WTO) has ruled again against the European Union (EU) in a case brought by the US over the EU's import rules for bananas, US and European officials said.

But Brussels called the preliminary ruling irrelevant and criticised the US, which does not even export bananas, for suing the EU over the bloc's trade preferences.

The US sued over the EU's trade preferences for bananas exported by former European colonies. Ecuador, the world's biggest banana exporter, won a similar case against Europe at the WTO late last year.

"We can confirm that the US prevailed in its challenge against the EC," a US trade official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said. He declined to give details on the ruling.

Challenges

"The bananas dispute is the longest running dispute in WTO history... We hope that the EC will finally ensure that it puts in place a bananas import regime that is WTO consistent," the official said.

European officials scolded Washington for bringing the case.

"This ruling, if adopted, would be a bad precedent since it is not only irrelevant... but it also encourages WTO challenges by WTO members who are not affected by the measures at stake," a European Commission official said on Friday.

"The fact that US multinationals are engaged in exports of Latin American bananas to the European Community market should not be sufficient to establish a prejudice under the WTO dispute settlement understanding," the official said.

He asked not to be identified because the WTO's ruling is confidential but spoke after it was reported by International Trade Daily, a specialist publication.

The EU changed its rules for banana imports on Jan. 1 after it struck interim new trade deals with former European colonies in the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of countries that Brussels says are WTO-compliant.