Banana Framework Agreement

The Banana Framework Agreement, concluded in 1993, was an agreement between the European Union and four Latin American banana exporting countries, Costa Rica, Colombia, Nicaragua and Venezuela, setting out shares of a tariff quota for banana exports to the European Union. It resolved part of the long running Banana Wars trade dispute, which began when Latin American exporting countries complained that the European Union's banana import regime violated core GATT trading rules and a GATT dispute panel failed to produce an agreed resolution. The framework agreement gave the four signing countries specific quota shares in place of continued litigation. A further agreement in 2010, the Geneva Agreement on Trade in Bananas, extended participation to more countries and phased down tariffs through 2017, settling the remaining disputes.