Ecuador's banana sanctions against EU

The World Trade Organisation is due to allow Ecuador to impose sanctions against the European Union in its long running dispute over the banana trade.

The WTO has repeatedly ruled that the EU is biased in its banana importing policies, because it discriminates in favour of former colonies in the Caribbean.

Ecuador has been granted the right to impose the retaliatory sanctions -- worth more than two-hundred-million dollars -- on EU products and intellectual property.

But the BBC correspondent in Geneva says Ecuador would prefer a compensation deal to give it better access to the EU banana market.

Ecuador is the world's largest banana exporter. Last year the United States imposed almost two-hundred million dollars of sanctions on the EU in the same dispute.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service