A second WTO panel has ruled that the EU’s reformed banana import regime remains out of compliance with international trade rules, potentially opening the door to trade sanctions from Ecuador, the world’s largest banana exporter.Cesar Montano Huerta, of Ecuador’s WTO mission, said that the ruling was a "big victory" but that Ecuador was "still hoping to come out with a solution and negotiations for this issue."European Commission agriculture spokesperson Michael Mann said that Brussels disagreed with the panel’s findings and that the EU would consider an appeal.Dating back to 1996, in what has become the WTO’s longest running dispute, Ecuador, along with other Latin American countries and the US, have repeatedly challenged the EU’s banana import regimes which grant preferential market access to banana imports from former colonies in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP). This most recent dispute, which follows a similar US dispute (see BRIDGES Weekly, 13 February 2008, http://www.ictsd.org/weekly/08-02-13/wtoinbrief.htm#1), concerns the EU’s introduction in 2006 of a tariff of 176 euros ($258) per tonne along with a 775,000 tonne duty-free quota for ACP bananas. The panel ruled that the import regime was inconsistent with the EU’s most-favoured nation (MFN) obligations requiring it to accord equal treatment to bananas from all countries. It did not rule on whether the EU’s new import regime maintained total market access for MFN banana suppliers. It also refrained from commenting on whether the new system violated the GATT prohibition against the discriminatory administration of quantitative restrictions when it granted duty-free access to 775,000 tonnes of ACP bananas; or if the tariff imposed exceeded the EU’s legal obligations. ICTSD Reporting; "EU May Appeal Against WTO’s Ecuador Banana Ruling," REUTERS, 7 April 2008; "WTO Rules Against EU in Bananas Dispute," REUTERS, 7 April 2008; "EU Suffers Defeat in Banana Wars," BBC NEWS, 7 April 2008.