The three proposals below are put forward by the organisers and participants in the second international banana conference. They are documents for discussion and we welcome feedback on any of the issues discussed in these papers.

1/ A multi-stakeholder forum on bananas
The proposal for a multi-stakeholder forum arose as a consensus of all participants in the second International Banana Conference held in April last year. All parties feel the urgent need for a forum in which governments, the private sector operators and civil society can come together regularly to analyse and seek solutions to the current lack of sustainability in the international banana economy. In the absence of a fully-fledged international commodity body for the sector such a forum would also tackle issues of market stability and international supply management.

2/ Recycling EU banana tariff revenues

Over 2 months, since the implementation of the reform of the EU import regime for bananas, EU member states have already collected nearly 100 million euros in tariff income (approx. 17.5 euro cents per kilo). Although current arrangements do not permit this substantial tariff income to be "recycled" directly into measures to ameliorate the poverty effects of the change of regime, we propose the establishment of a budget line open to all exporting countries. Our proposal is to 'recycle' some of the tariff revenue earned on banana imports into a fund aimed at supporting the transition to a liberalised EU market, whilst encouraging more sustainable practices in all banana exporting countries in a non-discriminatory manner. The emphasis should be on the participation of farmers'  and plantation workers' organisations in the delivery of programmes to enhance sustainability in producing regions, to promote compliance with high social and environmental standards, to access the fair trade market and to implement diversification within and beyond banana production.

3/  A system of differentiated tariffs:
We propose that the EU should study the feasibility of developing a differentiated tariffication system whereby bananas which meet agreed labour and environmental standards (eg ILO core labour standards, organic and fair trade standards) would benefit from graduated tariff reductions on entry to the EU. We believe that this concept could be applied under existing preferential schemes and that they can be justified under the current exceptions to WTO rules set out in Article XX. The monitoring system for such a system should involve both governments and civil society.

If you wish to contribute and/or send any comment, input or feedback on these papers, please write to: coord-euroban at tele2.fr