Part III of this Note will criticize the current EPAs and show similarities between the status of the EPAs today and the
Lome Convention IV that was found in violation of the GATT MFN provision.
7 According to an analyst the
Lome Conventions had strong elements of intergovernmentalism for they were strongly supported by France and the UK.
The
Lome Convention was a trade, aid and investment development programme between forty-six ACP countries and the nine member states of the then EEC, in which special concessions would be made available to export commodities from the ACP countries to the EEC markets.
importance of the trade provisions of the Fourth
Lome Convention for the
The CDE is financed by the European Development Fund (EDF) under the
Lome Convention office.
Despite two decades of preferential access to European union (EU) markets granted to ACP countries under the
Lome convention, their export performance has not improved substantially.
Two years ago, EU Ministers agreed a strategy to grant trade preferences to the least developed countries (LDCs) to match the best deals available under the EU/ACP
Lome Convention or the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP).
Such a waiver would permit the preferential market access arrangements granted under the fourth
Lome Convention (which expired in February 2000) to continue under the new ACP-EU Partnership Agreement.
The
Lome Convention expired at the end of February and the new deal is expected to last for 20 years.
The Suva Convention is a successor to the
LOME Convention that allows African, Caribbean and Pacific countries to sell sugar to European countries on a preferential prices rate.
Negotiations between the EU and the 71-nation African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group on a successor to the
Lome Convention, which has governed their relations since 1975, have made slow progress.
