Sir, - In response to your article (May 16th), Members of the European Parliament are not calling for a "ban on American bananas", rather we are calling for consumers to be allowed a supermarket choice between the Caribbean and American varieties.
This would do nothing other than maintain the EU's present banana regime, which offers preferential access to EU markets for small Caribbean island producers, something the US multinational Chiquita, in their quest for global banana supremacy, would like to see an end to.
May we also point out that there is no such thing as an "American" banana. Chiquita bananas are the produce of this American multi national's "sweat shop" plantation farms of Central and South America. And you can be assured that should the US Government win its WTO case against the EU, plantation labourers will not see a penny of the increase in profits. - Yours, etc.,
The European Parliament,
Rue Belliard,
1047 Brussels,
Belgium.