Ecuador rejects EU call to drop WTO bananas suit

Ecuador, the world's largest banana exporter, rejected recent calls to drop complaints filed with the World Trade Organization (WTO) that seek to knock down the European Union's (EU) import tariffs on the fruit. Recently, EU regulators said they wanted to negotiate a deal with Latin America's leading banana suppliers to gradually reduce European tariffs. The talks, which would aim to end a long-running trade dispute, have been conditioned on Latin American countries dropping all complaints over bananas at the WTO. Ecuador has led pressure from the region to demand that the EU cut tariffs. "There is no way we will drop the complaints," Fander Falconi, Ecuador's foreign minister, said on a visit to Lima, Peru's capital. Latin American countries have said the EU must stick to a tariff deal negotiated in July 2008 on the sidelines of a Geneva meeting of ministers seeking a breakthrough in the Doha round of world trade talks. When the Doha round talks collapsed, the EU walked away, saying the banana deal had to be a part of a wider Doha agreement. The Latin Americans insist that it is a separate pact. Under the July deal, the EU would have to cut its banana import tariff of $ 227.50 per tonne to Euro 114 by 2016, with an initial cut next year to Euro 148.