Doha non-agreement and the banana dispute : Deux ex machina ?

The impossible agreement on the Doha Round negotiations of July 1998 blocks the scheduled lowering of the customs tariffs applied to dollar bananas imported to the EU. This suits ACP and community producers. But the Geneva talks led to a compromise between Europeans and Latin Americans. It remains to be known whether the EU will wish to set up a partial agreement in order to get rid of the whole business or wait for a hypothetical resumption of , multilateral negotiations.