the EU, replacing these national arrangements, completing and fulfilling the EU’s obligation to ACP countries under Protocol 5 of the Lome Convention. The internal regime for the banana sector consists of quality standards, compensatory aid for EU production and restructuring incentives. External trade arrangements, based on a tariff quota system, were introduced at the same time as the internal regime. Following a ruling by the World Trade Organization in 1997 that certain aspects of the external regime were incompatible with world trade rules, an amended regime