The Lomeé Convention: an Evaluation of E.E.C. Economic Assistance to the A.C.P. States

Abstract

The primary purpose of this article is to offer a critical, multifaceted evalution of the economic assistance extended by the European Economic Community (E.E.C.) to the African, Caribbean, and Pacific Group of states (A.C.P.s) under the terms of the Convention of Lomé. The first agreement was concluded in 1975, followed by the second in 1979, which runs until March 19852. Both, of course, were signed in the capital of Togo. The Lomé Convention is largely a product of the E.E.C. association policy, included as Articles 131–136 in the Treaty of Rome3, primarily at the insistence of France. This led to the Implementing Convention of 1958 which governed the aid and trade ties between the E.E.C. and the 17 colonial dependencies of member states. Specifically, the Implementing Convention instituted a free-trade area between the associated dependencies and the Community, and created the European Development Fund (E.D.F. or Fund) as a source of supplementary aid.