U.S. asks WTO to review EU's banana import regime

WASHINGTON, June 29 (Reuters) - The United States asked the World Trade Organization on Friday to investigate the European Union's apparent failure to comply with previous rulings against its banana import regime.

"We share the concern of Ecuador and several other Latin American banana exporters regarding the continued existence of a discriminatory tariff rate quota in the EU's current banana regime," U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab said in a statement.

"We are hopeful that this formal step will facilitate the removal of that discrimination."

Schwab's office said the U.S. request stemmed from "the EU's apparent failure to implement the WTO rulings in a 1996 proceeding initiated by Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and the United States.

"That ruling said the EU's banana regime discriminates against bananas originating in Latin American countries and against distributors of such bananas, including several U.S. companies."

The dispute dates back to the creation of the European Union's single market in 1993, when the EU implemented a single banana import regime as part of its effort to eliminate trade barriers between member states.

However, the United States complained the new system created new barriers to bananas exported from Latin America and marketed by U.S. companies such as Chiquita.

Washington brought a WTO complaint and prevailed, eventually winning the right to impose $191 million in retaliatory duties on EU products. It terminated those duties after Brussels committed to shifting to a tariff-only import regime for bananas no later than January 1, 2006.

But the EU adopted a system that allows African, Caribbean, and Pacific countries to export a certain amount of bananas to the EU without paying paying duties, USTR said.

Bananas from Latin American do not have access to this duty-free tariff rate quota and are subject instead to a 176 euro per ton duty, USTR said.

"We regret that efforts between the EU and its Latin American trading partners to negotiate a solution to the banana issue have not been successful," Schwab said.

((Reporting by Doug Palmer; Editing by Chris Wilson; Reuters Messaging: doug.palmer.reuters.com@reuters.net; e-mail: doug.palmer@reuters.com; +1-202-898-8341)) Keywords: USA EU/TRADE BANANAS

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