./.  WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  WT/L/607/Add.14 
28 September 2005 
 (05-4278) 
  
  
 
EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES – THE ACP-EC PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT 
 
Recourse to Arbitration Pursuant to the Annex to the Decision of 14 November 2001
1 
 
Addendum  
 
Communication from the European Communities 
 
 
 The following communication, dated 26 September 2005, addressed to the Chairman of the 
Arbitrator, is being circulated at the request of the Delegation of the European Communities. 
 
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 1. Following the determination in the arbitral award issued on 1 August 2005 that the proposal 
by the European Communities to establish a tariff of 230€ on impor ts of bananas benefiting from 
MFN treatment “would not result in at least main taining total market access for MFN suppliers” as 
required by the Annex to the WTO Decision on the ACP-EC Partnership Agreement (hereafter the 
Cotonou Waiver), the European Comm unities has revised its proposal in light of the findings of the 
Arbitrator. 
2. A new proposal taking full consideration of those findings was adopted by the European 
Commission on 12 September.  This proposal estab lishes an MFN tariff of 187€/t and a tariff rate 
quota benefiting from duty-free treatment of 775,000 t for imports of bananas originating in ACP 
countries. 
3. As required by the fifth indent of the Annex to the Cotonou waiver, the European 
Communities has held three rounds of consultations w ith the interested Parties that had requested the 
arbitration with the purpose of seeking a mutually  satisfactory solution.  In the course of these 
consultations the EC provided a detailed explana tion of the methodology and complete calculation 
that led to the proposal on the basis of an explan atory note distributed to the interested Parties in 
advance, then furnished the interested Parties with all segregated price data used in the calculation of 
the MFN tariff, and answered all the questions raised by the interested Parties and their legal advisors. 
4. Unfortunately, the interested Parties have not made any proposal in terms of what they 
consider a mutually satisfactory solution despite th e fact that seeking such a solution is the very 
purpose of the consultations foreseen in the fifth in dent of the Annex to the Cotonou Waiver.  With 
the exception of a proposal for a zero MFN tariff, th e EC has not been presented with any alternative 
figure to its proposed MFN tariff, or any analysis of the Arbitrator’s Award. In brief, there is currently 
no basis for even seeking a mutually satisfactory so lution in the absence of a counter proposal from all 
the Interested Parties. 
                                                     
 
1 WT/L/436 (also circulated as a Minister ial Conference document as WT/MIN(01)/15). WT/L/607/Add.14 
Page 2  
 
 5. It should be noted that the EC has a commitment to have the tariff-only system in place by 
1 January 2006.  Therefore, the EC has just ove r three months to complete this process, which 
involves completing the arbitration, rebinding the EC’s scheduled commitments and enacting the necessary domestic legislation. 
6. For these reasons the European Communities here by respectfully requests the Arbitrator to 
determine, within 30 days of this request, whethe r the new EC proposal “has rectified the matter” in 
accordance with the fifth indent of the Annex to the Cotonou Waiver. 
7. The EC’s First Written Submission, together w ith the relevant exhibits, is being sent under 
separate cover. 
A copy of this letter has been served on the Interested Parties and Third Parties. 
 
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