Preparing for Lomé II

Abstract

Historically speaking, the Lome Convention is part of a continuing process for greater European economic and political cohesion. As far as the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries are concerned, it represents a coordinated response to an aspect of external manifestation of the process of closer union of Western Europe. On neither side is it all embracing, and, of course, it could never be so. Basically, it is an endeavour on the part of one-time imperialist and colonial European powers to establish a framework of economic relationship with the once colonised ACP societies. That some countries in this were not directly involved in a past colonial relationship between members of the two groups does not detract from this basic historical premise. History is about people, and the dynamics of social, economic and political mobility and interaction cause societies to develop mutual interests as much as interests which conflict. It should be recalled that at the point of time when political independencecame to ACP countries, there was still very considerable dependence on the metropolitan powers by almost all ACP countries. There were, of course, differences of levels and characteristics of such dependence. But dependence there was. The Yaounde Convention (1963) represented an institutionalised dependence on the part of some African countries on one particular metropolitan European power, France. As Western Europe moved towards closer economic cooperation, and as Britain found itself having to make certain fundamental adjustments in its relationship with its erstwhile colonies, a situation arose in which there was a real risk of different groupings of the one-time colonies coming to terms separately with the EEC thereby prolonging the state of dependence on the major industrialised countries of Europe. The Yaounde Convention was to expire and the new European Community was geared to making a number of separate arrangements with different groups of countries which had a colonial relationship with some of the EEC member countries.