Historical overview of the European Union
banana import policy

Adriana  Chacón-Cascante; John M.  Crespi

Historical overview of the European Union banana import policy

Autores

Adriana Chacón-Cascante

John M. Crespi

Editor

Universidad de Costa Rica

Descripción

The purpose of this article is to summarizethe main events that have characterized theconflict among the European Union, African,Caribbean and Pacific producers, Latin Americanexporters, and the United States, regardingbanana imports into the EU. The article providesa discussion of the historical debate over thesepolicies by stakeholders, a debate which hascome to be known as the banana war. Thisarticle also shows that current events regardingthe transition from a highly protected bananamarket in the EU to a tariff-only import system,which may lessen the skirmishing, but willnot entirely put an end to this war. There issuch a variety of divergent concerns at play,as the debate over the last decade has shown,that fulfilling everybody´s interests will proveimpossible. The paper is divided into sevensections as follows: 1) description of the EUpolicy structure prior to the establishment ofthe Common Market Organization for Bananas;2) description of the 1993 Common MarketOrganization for Bananas; 3) discussion of theevents that followed the 1993 import regime;4) description of the EU perspective on the socalledbanana war; 5) agreement between the EUand the US; 6) some research findings related tothe new import system and 7) conclusion.