The April 2001 agreements meant, at least in the short term, the end of the banana wars. A new reform came into force in two stages: on 1st July 2001 and 1st January 2002. The principal measures of this reform were:

• the elimination of national allocations of the dollar quota, and the allocation instead of licences based on exports to the EU between 1994-96;
• 17% of the dollar quota being allocated to "non-traditional" operators, i.e operators who were not trading in the reference period;
• the transfer, from 1 January 2002, of 100,000 tonnes of the ACP quota to the dollar quota;
• this “transitional regime” was to be replaced “by 1st January 2006 at the latest” by a tariff only regime for dollar bananas - with neither quotas nor licences.

After eight years of opposition to the EU banana regime, Chiquita Brands, due to gain considerably from this latest reform, pronounced itself satisfied. Ecuadorian exporters, who did not trade significantly with the EU during the period of reference (1994-96), are considered 'non-traditional' operators, but were assured by EU diplomats at the time that they would be the main beneficiaries of the new licences allocated to non-traditional operators as well as being the best-placed to gain from the elimination of quotas by 2006. Indeed, Ecuadorian government statistics indicate that imports from Ecuador into the EU increased after the implementation of the reformed EU banana regime in July 2001.