ABSTRACT
The two Yaoundé (1963–75) and four Lomé Conventions (1975–2000) between the European Union (EU) and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of countries were built on a system of preferential treatment from the 1960s through to the 1990s (Carbone, 2010). The metaphor that comes to mind is the paternalistic treatment of a smaller child. After decades of colonial rule and with the hastened wave of decolonization, the EU had left behind a group of former colonies and newly independent states ill-equipped to deal with the demands of a rapidly evolving global economy. Therefore, EU resources were made available irrespective of performance and almost all ACP goods entered the EU free of tariff or quota restrictions (Brown, 2002). In the heyday of North–South confrontation in the 1970s and 1980s, the EU–ACP relationship thus earned praise as ‘the most comprehensive, innovative, and ambitious agreement for North-South cooperation’ (Carbone, 2010: 240).
