Bananas: special framework of technical and financial assistance for traditional ACP suppliers

In its re-examined proposal, the Commission incorporated a majority (10) of the 15 amendments adopted by the Parliament at second reading. Those amendments that it rejected related to: - specific wording requiring consultations with producer and farmers' organisations, because these are a necessary consequence of the partnership approach to development policy with the ACP, - assistance to projects of a specifically social nature because this proposal seeks to assist ACP suppliers in improving the competitiveness of the banana sector, - references to the socio-economic impact of banana production, - making the amount of an aid dependent on the size of a company, - implementation of a transparent aid mechanism permitting producers easy access to aids because the funds, in this case, are not to be provided as direct compensatory aid to producers.�