The Dominican representative to the Lomé IV Convention, Angel Lockward, warns that a change in the present EU banana marketing system will adversely affect the country’s interests in Europe. The United States, supported by Mexico and other Latin American nations, is currently exerting strong pressure on the Europeans to free banana imports to the EU. The U.S. has taken the matter to the WTO, alleging that the banana quotas contravene the organization’s principles and are a constraint on North American companies growing bananas in Latin America.
Mr. Lockward believes that no moves in this direction will come to fruition because of the commitments made by the European Union to its former colonies in Asia, the Pacific, and the Caribbean under the Lomé convention. He cautions, however, that U.S. efforts may prevent the country from taking advantage of the possibility of supplying the quantities of nations that are unable to meet their established quotas.
Resolution 404, which was negotiated in the context of the Uruguay Trade Round, sets preferential prices for imports of bananas to the EU from different countries in the Americas under a quota system that should not exceed 2 million metric tons per annum. The Dominican Republic and other non-traditional banana producers were allotted 4.6 percent of this quota, just about 90,000 thousand metric tons. Of that total, the country is entitled to 55 thousand metric tons.