International fair-trade banana organisation Euroban has sent an open letter to EU ministers of agriculture, MEPs, and members of the Banana Management Committee (BMC). In the letter it expresses its concern over the lack of transparency and unfair practices relating to the BMC's decision to reduce licences allocated to non-traditional importers in quota C for the first quarter of 2002 to eight per cent – as opposed to 26 per cent for traditional C operators – in anticipation of the shift of 100,000 tonnes from quota C to quotas A and B.

It said the EC's lack of consultation went against the EU's commitment to greater transparency and accountability of the World Trade Organisation vis-à-vis other countries; that the BMC's decision was unfair; and would consolidate the importation of bananas from ACP countries into the hands of a smaller number of big banana firms, at the expense of smaller and independent banana importers.

'It will create a highly anti-competitive environment on the European markets, where smaller independent importers have been present in the past,' said Euroban co-ordinator Anne Claire Chambron. 'We fear that their loss of access to quota C as 'non-traditional operators' will have serious consequences for the future of the small Fairtrade and/or organic producers of the Windward Islands, the Dominican Republic and Ghana.'

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