ABSTRACT
The relations of the European Economic Community (EEC) with the Arab World are conducted in four basic frameworks: the so-called Maghreb/Mashreq agreements, the Euro-Arab Dialogue, the Lome Convention, and various miscellaneous nonreciprocal relations. When the EEC was formed in 1958, the Community of six turned its attention to solving certain problems caused by the special trade links that had traditionally existed between certain of its member states and certain Mediterranean countries. It became clear that arrangements with Mediterranean countries with respect to particular problems could not be satisfactorily dealt with unless some attempt was made to achieve a balance between the Community's capacity to import and its partners' capacity to produce and export. The creation of a trading bloc as powerful as the EEC provided a focus of economic attraction, and in order that the economic unification of Europe would not be an exclusively inward-looking phenomenon the six expressed their willingness to entertain special relations with other partners.
