. /.  WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  G/C/W/486 
15 April 2004 
 (04-1690) 
Council for Trade in Goods Original:   Spanish 
   
QUESTIONS POSED BY ECUADOR TO THE EUROPEAN UNION REGARDING 
REGULATION (EC) No. 414/2004 OF 6 MARCH 2004 
 
 
 The following communication, dated 15 April 2004,  is being circulated at the request of the 
delegation of Ecuador. 
 
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 On 6 March 2004, the European Commission issued Regulation (EC) No. 414/2004, adopting 
specific measures with a view to adapting the a rrangements for administering tariff quotas on banana 
imports as a result of the accession of new Member States on 1 May 2004.    In this connection, the Mission of Ecuador to the WTO wishes to state that Article 8 of the 
Understanding on Bananas between the Eur opean Communities and Ecuador (document 
WT/DS27/58) establishes that "[t]he licensing regi me will be administered in good faith and on a non-
discriminatory basis".  Given that the aforemen tioned Regulation presupposes a major change to the 
definition of the term "traditional operator", as set  out in Annex I to the Understanding on Bananas, 
the Mission is concerned that such a change will in practice prevent operators from the new Member 
States from being able to register as traditional ope rators, thereby entailing nullification or impairment 
of the benefits accruing directly or indirectly to Ecuadorian exports to the markets of the new Member 
States under the GATT 1994 and the Understanding on Bananas.  
  The Mission of Ecuador would, moreover, be grateful if the European Commission could state its position with regard to th e following questions and concerns: 
 1. Will a single, separate quota be opened for th e 10 acceding countries, corresponding to the 
volume of banana exports carried out by all the supplying countries? 
 2. If so, how will MFN and ACP suppliers have access to this quota? 
 3. Is it planned to maintain quotas "A" and "B " for MFN suppliers and quota "C" for ACP 
suppliers? 
 4. What is the total volume of the quota(s) to be determined by the EC for the 10 new Member 
States? 
 
5. What will be the applicable in-quota tariff(s) – 75 euros/tonne for MFN suppliers and 0 for 
ACP suppliers? 
 6. Is the EC planning to establish the same regime  for operators in the future new Member 
States as that provided in Regulation (EC) No. 414/2004 of 6 March 2004? 
 
7. If so, when does the EC expect to issu e the relevant regulatory instruments? 
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8. Does the EC consider that the change to the definition of the term "traditional operator" 
contained in Regulation EC No. 414/2004 is consistent with para graphs 3 and 8 of Annex I to 
the Understanding on Bananas? 
 9. Regarding Article 3.2 of Regulation (EC) No . 414/2004, the Mission of Ecuador would like to 
know how there can be "traditional operators not  registered" in the Community of 15 that 
have carried out primary imports with a view to  their sale in one or more of the new Member 
States.  What is the purpose of including this category of unregistered operators and whom is 
such a category intended to cover? 
 
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