Bananas: common organisation of the market COM

The committee (chairman: Mr Arlindo CUNHA (PPE, P)) adopted the three compromise amendments on the COM in bananas drawn up by the rapporteur Mr Giacomo SANTINI (UPE, I) following his meetings with Commissioner Franz FISCHLER. The legislative resolution was not put to the vote during the plenary sitting in December 1996 because of the refusal of Commissioner FISCHLER to accept the European Parliament's amendments and the report was therefore referred back to committee. The committee calls in its compromise amendments for the establishment of a mechanism to remedy loss suffered by an operator (e.g. reduction of his reference quantity) in the event of "force majeure" and not because of "exceptional circumstances". In the interests of greater transparency, the committee defined the concept of "force majeure" as "serious internal political, economic, social or institutional crisis, endemic civil war and/or the lack of a government". It proposed that Somalia benefit from the scheme. The European Commission, for its part, has already submitted proposals to guarantee supplies to the market and interested operators if, for reasons of force majeure, there are problems importing ACP bananas. It also makes provision for the quota to be redistributed between other suppliers if an ACP state is unable to supply the quantity allocated to it for reasons which cannot be ascribed to force majeure. In the final compromise amendment, the committee insisted that small producers who operate under conditions constituting an outstanding model from the ecological and social point of view ("fair trade" producers) should be given greater access to the Union market by means of appropriate information and promotion measures.�