Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-11-14-Speech-1-129"
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"en.20051114.16.1-129"2
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".
Here we go again. Another EU import tariff scheme has come unstuck: recently sugar, now bananas, and all for pan-EU harmony. This scheme is hampered by the origins of Member States, many of whose former colonies produce bananas and whom they now rightly wish to assist. Although complex, the three-tariff system helped, with the C quota reserved for ACP countries to export up to 750 000 tonnes annually to the EU at zero rate. Hence the problem: because non-EU countries, especially Latin America, now want parity.
I suggest two solutions. We can go to tariff only, as proposed for 2006. In October 2004, EUR 230 per tonne was suggested, but that was too low for ACP and too high for dollar countries. However a common tariff is set up, it will disadvantage ACP countries, causing loss of production and unemployment. Already the Windward Isles report that 24 000 small producers have dropped to 7 000 under dollar-country pressure.
In many ACP countries bananas grow in terrain unsuitable for other crops, so unemployment grows massively. Will these people migrate, some to Europe adding to our 20 million unemployed, or will they take to crops like cocaine that will grow on the former banana plantations?
I suggest an alternative solution based on the repeated statements that we are supposed to be in an EU which retains its individual Member State status. Mr Barroso recently claimed that regulations might be cut. Combine the two: ditch the banana import scheme and make individual Member States sort themselves out with their own arrangements. After all, we are all grown-up democracies. EU countries would buy on the open market or support their former colonies just as they wish, without repercussions on the world market. The UK operated Commonwealth preference up to 1972 without great problems. If that sounds a little nostalgic, well, why not? We owe these former colonies. What is wrong with a little humanity in trying to maintain employment in the Third World? Rather that than the arid scratchings of the bureaucratic Brussels pen-pusher."@en1
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