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To: Caxton Rhodes who wrote (21205)	1/12/1999 5:07:00 PM
From: Ruffian	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 152472

Bananas> US to seek sanctions on EU; banana panel revived (Updates with remarks by EU's Abbott, DSB agreement to EU request for panel in new 3rd-8th paras) By Robert Evans GENEVA, Jan 12 (Reuters) - The United States will ask the World Trade Organisation (WTO) on January 25 to approve hefty sanctions against goods from the European Union in their long- running row over bananas, U.S. trade envoy Rita Hayes said on Tuesday. Hayes indicated that if the EU were willing to ''sit down and talk'' about the substance of the dispute, then the United States would reconsider its approach. But EU ambassador to the WTO Roderick Abbott, who told reporters that the 15-member trade bloc remained open to substantive talks, said he doubted such a meeting would be productive under the threat of U.S. sanctions. Washington has said it aims to impose the additional tariffs -- estimated as likely to affect EU exports worth around $568 million -- at the start of March. The WTO's Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) agreed on Tuesday to requests by Ecuador and the EU to reconvene an expert panel to review the EU's new banana import and marketing regime to decide whether it complied with open trading rules, diplomats said. The U.S. delegation joined in the consensus decision by the WTO's 133 member countries who form the DSB, they added. Abbott told reporters that he believed the three independent panellists would probably deal with both requests -- meaning effectively one dispute settlement panel. ''I think that the panel will take the sensible approach and look at this issue as one,'' the EU envoy said. EU officials had earlier described Ecuador's request as pursuing the same ends as their own. The three-man panel would have 90 days to report. Both the EU and Ecuador had originally asked for panels, whose rulings all countries are committed to observe, at a DSB session in December. Under WTO procedures, such requests are granted automatically the second time they come to the DSB. The EU has said it regards the Ecuadorean approach as almost identical to what it insists is its own -- getting quick WTO action on assessing whether its new banana regime, which went into force on January 1, conforms to open trading rules. The previous regime, shaped to favour bananas imported from former European colonies mainly in the Caribbean, over fruit from Latin America largely marketed by big U.S. firms, has already been found wanting by an earlier WTO panel. The United States and five Latin American countries -- including Mexico and Ecuador -- who launched the original complaint say its replacement is little different and does not conform to the recommendations of that panel. A new panel would be made up of the same trade experts as the previous one. Washington has announced plans to slap sanctions from next March on EU goods worth around $568 million unless Brussels changes the new regime to its satisfaction, although it has also said it will come to the WTO for formal approval. Hayes told reporters on Tuesday: ''We will request approval (for the sanctions) at the next regular DSB on January 25.'' She indicated that if the EU were willing to ''sit down and talk about the substance'' of the dispute, then the United States could reconsider its approach. ''If the EU wants to sit down with us, we'll see what we can work out,'' the U.S. trade envoy declared. But she said that Brussels had given no sign so far that it was ready to do this. ''It is games with them, they don't want to sit down with us and work this out,'' Hayes said. The EU says the U.S. approach is illegal and a display of unilateralism that undermines the principle of resolving trade disputes in the multilateral forum of the WTO. The United States and its allies, including Ecuador, counter that the EU is itself undermining the WTO by at best only partially implementing panel rulings and then challenging its trade partners to launch new cases in the DSB. Related News Categories: US Market News