European Private Sector and African Firms in EU-ACP Development Cooperation (1975–2000)

Abstract

In 1975, the cooperation framework between the EEC and the forty-six countries of the African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group under the Lome Convention established the first Community policy to support local ACP companies under the name of ‘industrial cooperation’. This policy was meant to enable ACP countries to catch up economically and to lead to a massive development of manufacturing in ACP countries. At that time ‘developing’ countries presented a common front after the wave of independence in the 1960s. They facilitated discussion of the New International Economic Order (NIEO), which aimed at establishing a better division of labour and a South-North economic catching-up. The ‘spirit of Lome’ referred to in this chapter is dependent on this particular context. Signed in 1975 in the capital of Togo, the Lome Convention was presented as a ‘small-scale NIEO’ with the aim of satisfying ACP countries that were keen to achieve rapid industrialisation.