AfricaBib 
bibliographic database
| Previous page | New search |
The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here
 Periodical article |
 Leiden University catalogue |
 WorldCat |
| Title: | The European Union - Africa-Caribbean-Pacific (ACP), Lomé Convention: expectations, reality and the challenges of the 21st century |
| Author: | Asante, S.K.B. |
| Year: | 1996 |
| Periodical: | Africa Insight |
| Volume: | 26 |
| Issue: | 4 |
| Pages: | 381-391 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic terms: | developing countries Africa |
| Subjects: | European Union Lomé Convention |
| Abstract: | Since the conclusion of Lomé I in February 1975 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries have enjoyed preferential access to the European Union (EU) market. The four successive Lomé Conventions have committed this specially privileged group of ACP countries, now numbering 70 States, and the EU to achieving a 'better balance of trade'. Nevertheless, despite all the trade preferences that the ACP States have received during the past 20 years under the Lomé arrangements, their trade performance has been disappointing. A number of constraints, such as the rules of origin requirements, make it increasingly difficult for the Lomé Convention to contribute to ACP trade development. Lomé has not, on the whole, made any significant impact in meeting the challenges of African development. In the case of the process of African regionalism, Lomé would seem to have become a disturbing obstacle to progress as far as trade liberalization schemes of African economic communities are concerned. When Lomé IV expires in 2000, there would seem to be two options for future ACP-EU relations: a radically redesigned Lomé aimed at improving the competitiveness of the African ACP countries on the world market, or the end of the Lomé system and its replacement by new agreements to be established by each geographical grouping - Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific - with the EU. Ref. |
