With the ink hardly dry on Costa Rica’s pact with the European Union regarding banana import tariffs, the EU has decided that the long negotiations in Geneva is part of its failed attempt to liberalize trade with the rest of the world. But this country insists on the legality of the agreement and demands that it be respected.
EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said the attempt to come to an agreement with another 30 nations had simply not worked and their failure makes the Costa Rican banana accord invalid. This decision comes as a bitter blow to the country’s hopes in getting the tariffs reduced gradually to make this country more competitive with other banana-producing nations, principally in Africa, that were once European colonies. Those countries have no import duties.
The failure to reach an agreement caps World Trade Organization attempts beginning in 2001 to persuade the EU to lift high tariffs on both agricultural and manufactured items. In the last half of the 20th century, representatives of EU member nations had a difficult time agreeing on import conditions among them, as leaders struggled to try to protect or favor their own farmers. It is, then, no wonder that they are protectionist with the rest of the world.
Despite this favoritism toward EU former colonies, Costa Rica is the number two exporter of banana to the Union, according to a recent article in the daily paper La Nacion. Banana exporters in this hemisphere, including this country, Ecuador, Colombia and Panama, hailed the agreement to reduce the 176 per ton banana tariff joyously. The agreement would have eventually reduced the duty to 114 euros in 2016.
This backtracking by the European Union does not bode well for the fate of a possible free trade agreement with Central america, although the negotiations continue toward that pact.
