EU refuses to fund the promotion of the European banana.

The Association of European Banana Producers (APEB) has criticized that the European Commission has refused to co-finance the next program to promote the RUP logo, that identifies the European banana.

This program (2015 to 2018), just like the three previous programs (2005 to 2008, 2008 to 2011 and 2011 to 2014), The objective was to promote the logo of the Outermost Regions (RUP), especially in the Canary Islands, Guadalupe, Madeira and Martinique, and had the ambition to include new products derived from plant diversification, In addition to the banana.

The proposed budget was 10 million euros for a program 3 years (distributed among the four ORs), funded to the 50% by the European Commission.

Created in 1991, the RUP logo allows, according to the APEB, “make known and better identify” quality productions originating from the ORs.

“The promotion of a logo that allows us to identify our productions as European is essential for us”, they insist from the APEB.

On one side, “due to the substantial concessions granted to our regional competitors under the Generalized System of Preferences (SPG) and the signing of the Economic Partnership Agreement (APE) with neighboring Caribbean countries, The EC completely opened the borders of our ORs to productions, low-paid, of these countries, that freely enter our local markets. In addition, our products do not have access to their markets”.

On the other hand, regarding the banana, tariff rates, applicable to banana-producing countries in Central and South America, “are drastically reduced” due to trade agreements signed in 2010 for the European Union. “So that, The European banana has to face a context of increasingly ruthless competition”.

The tariff reduction granted to the “dollar banana” will take 2010 to 2020 the tariff rate of 176 to 75 EUR per tonne, “that is, an additional competitive advantage” of 101 euros per ton in favor of “dollar banana”.

The EC rejection affects six products (banana, cantaloupe, tomato, cucumber and lettuce, sugar cane honey), as well as five organizations (Ugban, Iguaflhor, Asprocan, Gesba and ACIF-CCIM) of four RUP (Canary Islands, Guadalupe, Martinique and Madeira).

The decision, note to APEB, it's a “absolute nonsense” that will lead “undoubtedly” to the disappearance of the RUP logo.