The Lomé Convention is a trade and aid agreement between the European Economic Community (EEC) and 71 African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) countries, first signed in February 1975 in

Lomé Lomé is the capital and largest city of Togo. It has an urban population of 837,437

Togo Togo (), officially the Togolese Republic (french: République togolaise), is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north. It extends south to the Gulf of Guinea, where its c ...

History

The first Lomé Convention (Lomé I), which came into force in April 1976, was designed to provide a new framework of cooperation between the then European Economic Community (EEC) and developing

ACP countries The Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS) is a group of countries in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific that was created by the Georgetown Agreement in 1975. Formerly known as African, Caribbean and Pacific Group o ...

, in particular former British, Dutch, Belgian and French colonies. It had two main aspects: It provided for most ACP agricultural and mineral exports to enter the EEC free of duty. Preferential access based on a quota system was agreed for products, such as sugar and beef, in competition with EEC agriculture. Secondly, the EEC committed

European Unit of Account The European Unit of Account (EUA) was a unit of account most notably used in the European Communities from 1975 to 1979, when it was replaced at parity by the European Currency Unit, in turn replaced at parity in 1999 by the euro. The EUA was intr ...

(EUA) 3 billion for aid and

investment Investment is the dedication of money to purchase of an asset to attain an increase in value over a period of time. Investment requires a sacrifice of some present asset, such as time, money, or effort. In finance, the purpose of investing is ...

in the ACP countries. The convention was renegotiated and renewed three times. Lomé II (January 1981 to February 1985) increased aid and investment expenditure to EUA 5.5 billion. Lomé III came into force in March 1985 (trade provisions) and May 1986 (aid), and expired in 1990; it increased commitments to EUA 8.5 billion. Lomé IV was signed in December 1989. Its trade provisions cover the ten years, 1990 to 1999. Aid and investment commitments for the first five years amounted to EUA 12 billion. In all, some 70 ACP countries are party to Lomé IV, compared with 46 signatories of Lomé I. Lomé development aid was dispersed primarily through the European Development Fund; investment assistance was mainly channelled through the European Investment Bank. Two other important mechanisms were the

Stabex The Stabex (from French ''Système de Stabilisation des Recettes d'Exportation'') is the acronym for a European Commission compensatory finance scheme to stabilise export earnings of the ACP countries. It was first introduced in the first Lomé Co ...

and Sysmin schemes, which provided compensatory finance to ACP states for adverse fluctuations in the world prices of, respectively, key agricultural and mineral exports. The emergence of the single European market at the end of 1992 affected ACP preferential access to EU markets. The Caribbean's many

smallholder A smallholding or smallholder is a small farm operating under a small-scale agriculture model. Definitions vary widely for what constitutes a smallholder or small-scale farm, including factors such as size, food production technique or technology ...

banana farmers argued for the continuation of their preferential access to traditional markets, notably the United Kingdom. They feared that otherwise the EU would be flooded with cheap bananas from the Central American plantations, with devastating effects on several Caribbean economies. Negotiations led in 1993 to the EU agreeing to maintain the Caribbean producers' preferential access until the end of Lomé IV, pending possible negotiation on an extension. In 1995, the United States government petitioned to the

World Trade Organization The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization that regulates and facilitates international trade. With effective cooperation in the United Nations System, governments use the organization to establish, revise, and ...

to investigate whether the Lomé IV convention had violated WTO rules. Then later in 1996, the WTO Dispute Settlement Body ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, effectively ending the cross-subsidies that had benefited ACP countries for many years. But the US remained unsatisfied and insisted that all preferential trade agreements between the EU and ACP should cease. The WTO Dispute Settlement Body established another panel to discuss the issue and concluded that agreements between the EU and ACP were indeed not compatible with WTO regulations. Finally, the EU negotiated with the US through WTO to reach an agreement.

References

External links

The Lomé Convention Background
* Mouradian, Anne-Marie
The Lomé Convention under threatThe full text of the Lome Convention
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lome Convention Foreign trade of the European Union Trade blocs History of the Commonwealth of Nations ACP–European Union relations Treaties entered into by the European Union Lomé 1975 in Togo Treaties concluded in 1975 Treaties entered into force in 1976 European Union foreign aid Euro

History

See also

References

Further reading

External links