. /.RESTRICTEDWORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONG/C/W/322
19 October 2001
(01-5155)
Council for Trade in Goods Original: Spanish
QUESTIONS FROM NICARAGUA REGARDING THE REQUEST
FOR A WTO WAIVER CONCERNING THE NEW ACP-EC
PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT
The following communication, addressed to the Ch airman of the Council for Trade in Goods
and dated 18 October 2001, has been received from the Permanent Mission of Nicaragua.
_______________
In a spirit of goodwill and cooperation, I send attached the written questions from my
Government, while reserving the right to submit further questions and/or seek clarification from the
European Communities within the period of 90 days allowed for the examination of the waiver
request concerning the ACP-EC Partnershi p Agreement, which began on 5 October 2001.
Written Questions from the Delegation of Nicaragua
General aspects
1. Please indicate whether the Cotonou Agreement will promote an increase in trade with ACP
States by allocating them quotas in various products.
2. Please describe the preferential treatment required by the relevant provisions of the
Partnership Agreement for products such as beef, bananas and sugar originating in the ACP States tobe covered by that treatment, providing a list of each of the relevant provisions.
3. If the EU policy has been designed to respon d to the development needs of the ACP States,
which is the general and broad objective of the measures required by the relevant provisions of the
Cotonou Agreement, please indicate if it is feasible that, for the products mentioned in the previous
paragraph, preferential treatment could be increased in future if the development of the ACP Statesshould make that necessary.  In such circumstances, who would determine whether such a change was
necessary, and for what other reasons would changes be made to the measures?
Bananas
4. Please explain whether the former Lomé Conv ention required bananas from ACP States to
receive the same preferential treatment that the EU now considers necessary pursuant to the relevant
provisions of the Cotonou Agreement.
5. Please describe in detail all the measures concerning bananas that are required pursuant to the
Cotonou Agreement, the concrete political objectives that the EU wishes to pursue with those
measures, and the reasons which make it impossible to achieve those objectives using measuresconsistent with the obligations under Articles I and XIII.G/C/W/322
Page 2
6. Please indicate whether the tariff preference of €300 for the ACP States is a measure required
under the Cotonou Agreement, whether that preference will be applied during the period subject to the
tariff quota system and, if so, in which quotas it will be applied:  A, B, C, or in all of them.
7. Nicaragua has expressed its view that the Understandings reached by the EU with the
United States and Ecuador constitute an important step towards resolving the banana dispute.
Nevertheless, we are concerned that the EU would appear to be granting a preference of €300 to theACP States which was not specified in the Understandings.  Would the EU be prepared for the waiver
decision to state clearly that the tariff preference for the ACP States applies exclusively to the volume
of 750,000 tonnes of quota C?
8. Could the EU issue us with a guarantee that du ring the duration of the period subject to the
tariff quota, the tariff for quotas A and B will not exceed 75 euro/tonne?
9. If the EU were at some time in the future to decide to increase the tariff quota, would the
waiver currently being examined be extended to th is new volume in order to allow the ACP States to
receive further preferential treatment, or would the non-discriminatory rules of the WTO be applied
fully to the additional volume?
10. What preferential treatment will be granted to the ACP States during the period from
1 January 2006 until 31 December 2007?  If the ACP States will benefit from preferences during this
period, we need to know what measures will be taken and, in the case of a tariff preference, the levelof that preference.
11. Would the EU agree to the text of the decision indicating clearly that the waiver of
obligations under Article XIII for quota C is dependent on the EU transferring 100,000 tonnes to
quota B from January 2001?
Provisions regarding sugar access
12. Please indicate whether the applicants consider that the waiver of obligations under Article I.1
of the GATT is suitable to cover the quotas which the Cotonou Agreement grants ACP countries for
sugar access to the European market.
13. The delegation of Nicaragua would like to know whether the whole of the European market
for sugar is subject to quotas.  If so, which quotas are allocated to non-ACP countries?  Otherwise,
what percentage of the European market is subject to tariffs?
14. What quotas has the EU provided for sugar imports from "third countries" or, in other words,
what percentage of the European market can Nicaragua hope to supply and what tariff would we have
to pay?
__________