Agence France Presse | August 1, 2000
BRUSSELS - Companies in Europe continue to face tariff and regulatory barriers when they export to the United States, the Commission of the European Union objected on Tuesday in a report attacking US tactics in a so-called banana war.
The EU said that companies had serious problems exporting to the United States owing to rotating tariffs and certification regulations concerning notably health regulations.
In its annual report on barriers to trade and investment in the United States, the EU singled out so-called carrousel legislation applying rotating tariffs on European Union products in retaliation against EU barriers to imports of bananas.
That dispute centers on EU policies for imports of bananas which Washington charges favor banana growers from EU territories and former colonies in Africa, the Pacific and the Caribbean, to the detriment of US multinationals that export bananas from Central America.
Washington took its complaint to the Geneva-based WTO (World Trade Organization), which agreed that the EU banana import regime discriminated against US exporters and that the US was therefore entitled to apply punitive tariffs.
On Tuesday, the commission, in raising various objections to US trade practices, said it was expecting decisions by the WTO concerning US foreign sales corporations, which allow US companies, through sales companies usually located in tax havens, to benefit from reduced export taxes.
The EU also drew attention to "unilateral and extra-territorial legislation" by the US, and to the "abusive" use of trade instruments and export credits.
The commission said it was particularly concerned with obstacles faced in emerging markets such as the market for information technologies.
It recalled that along with the US, the EU had promised to reduce progressively obstacles to goods, services, and investment within the framework of agreements signed in 1995 and 1998.
But the commission said that European companies still had trouble in exporting to the United States.
It blamed US tariffs and trade barriers, including certification procedures and health regulations.
The EU also criticised unilateral US commercial policies, such as section 301 of the Helms-Burton law which established sanctions in the banana sector.
Europe currently has 11 cases against the US pending before the WTO, and said a case concerning abusive use of trade policy instruments had been decided in its favor based on an anti-dumping law of 1916.
The EU also spoke of the need to defend European intellectual property rights in the US.
The commission said that European states were facing particular problems in the field of communications services, concerning mobile phone equipment and networks for example, even though US firms had access to the EU market.
US legislation concerning the Internet and e-commerce might also penalise European companies, the commission said.Agence France Presse:
