Europe Ponders Future Relations With Its Former Colonies

The Lomé Convention of 1975 that created the ACP concept – the African, Caribbean, and Pacific Group of States – was essentially a bridge built by the European Union (EU) for the former colonies of its member states to carry them over uncertain waters into their post-colonial future.

Apart from a lot of development aid, Lomé gave them duty-free and quota-free access for most of their exports into the EU, in the hope of engendering viable industries and so integrating the countries into the global economy. But when Lomé expired in 2000, little of that had been achieved.