ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the Green Paper and the Commission's basis of negotiations or offer, comparing the latter to the US Act. It suggests that the innovative spirit Lome initially had to use the Treaty again as a test-bed of new and challenging ideas in development cooperation. Analysing it in the light of Lome history suggests that Lome will end, at least in all but name, an impression reinforced by the Commission's basis for negotiations. Overcoming African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) resistance once again Lome III introduced strong conditionality and cumbersome administrative procedures. Flexibly responding to changes in the political environment eroding ACP bargaining power the EU has become more and more a 'normal donor', though a donor equipped with more than the normal means of control. Trade preferences have been attacked by pointing at the loss in market shares of ACP countries. The power of the ACP governments could be undermined from within as well.
