EUROPEAN BANANA POLICY

That this House notes that the European Commission will slip on a banana skin if it does not produce acceptable proposals for an EC banana regime that will allow banana producers of the Windward Islands, Jamaica, Belize and Surinam to continue to provide high quality bananas, which are a vital part of the British fruit bowl, at attractive prices to the British consumer; congratulates successive United Kingdom Governments for putting in place mechanisms in the United Kingdom that have allowed this trade to flourish to the benefit of the economies of these countries; and calls on the United Kingdom Government to urge the European Commission to produce a solution without further delay that will enable this traditional trade to continue without loss of confidence as provided for under the Banana Protocol of the Lome Convention.