An economic assessment of the Common Market Organization for bananas in the European Union

The main objective of this paper is to provide some estimates of how the world banana market has been affected by the Common Market Organization (CMO) for bananas established in the European Union (EU) on 1 July 1993, and modified in April 1994. We quantify the effects of the new EU regulation on world and EU prices, on the structure of EU imports from Latin American countries, African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries and EU regional suppliers, on the pattern of consumption in the various EU member states, and on consumers' and producers' welfare using a static partial equilibrium model of the world banana market. Simulation results suggest that the two key variables in determining the effects of the CMO are the size of the tariff quota on dollar and non-traditional ACP bananas and the capacity of ACP countries to exhaust their ACP contingent share.