Western and Central Europe

The proposed coalition to form a government between Austria's People's Party and Mr. Jorg Haider's Freedom Party (FPO) sparked widespread protest and criticism within the European Union (EU) and also outside Europe. The reason for this outcry is none other than Mr. Haider's policy statement and past remarks which seem to promote xenophobia, by inter alia proposing discriminatory immigration policies, and praising Nazi practices before and during World War II. On a number of occasions Mr. Haider publicly praised as honorable men Austrian Waffen SS veterans.

On April 11, 2001 the US and the EU reached an agreement (the "Agreement") in the decade-long dispute over the EU's banana import regime.  The Agreement requires the EU to abandon its proposal to institute on July 1 a "first-come-first-served" licensing regulation and to move in 2 stages to a tariff-only system by 2006.

 

Agriculture has traditionally been a primary source of economic tension between the United States and the European Union. The dispute over the EU's banana regime has been among the most contentious in recent years. It is also among the more legally and politically complex.