ABSTRACT
The antecedents of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP)-European Union (EU) Conventions are to be found in 1957 when France and, to a lesser extent, Belgium pushed for their former colonies to be associated with the European Community as a condition for their joining the European Economic Community. The review provides a reliable signal as to the types of issues likely to face ACP-EU negotiators when they give consideration in 1998 to whether, and how, to fashion a successor to the Lome Conventions. The evidence reveals that disbursements under the Lome I Convention, signed in 1975 for a five-year period, were not completed until 1990. For the Lome III Convention, signed in 1984, only 64 per cent of the funds had been disbursed by the end of 1992. The Mid-Term Review, which is the name under which the Lome IV's second Protocol was captured, was significant in time because it was the first post-Cold War negotiation of Lome.
