Post-Lome: the European union and the South

The Lome Convention is a trade and development co-operation agreement betwe en the 15 member states of the European Union (EU) and 71 African, Caribbea n and Pacific (ACP) states. On 30 September 1998 the EU and ACP started neg otiating a successor agreement to the fourth Lome Convention. This paper in troduces a 'regulation approach' to a political economy examination of the EU's new trade priorities for the developing world. The paper aims to evalu ate the extent to which the Union's post-Lome strategy, with its commitment to multilateralism, differentiation and regionalism, reflects a fundamenta l change in the nature of contemporary international economy and society. T he EU argues that multilateralism, driven by globalisation and policed by m ultilateral agencies like the World Trade Organization (WTO), has sen,ed to undermine Lome. This paper argues that multilateral principles, and in par ticular WTO compliance, are at the very centre of the present post-Lome neg otiations because the EU, indirectly supported by the USA, put them there. The Union's new strategy, to create a series of free trade areas linking Eu rope with regional groupings of ACP states, has the potential to damage rit e cause of regional solidarity among developing countries.