Signing of Agreement for the Amendment of the Fourth ACP/EC Lomé Convention

On November 4, 1995, the Agreement amending the Fourth Convention between the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of states and the European Community (EC) of Lomé was signed at the Mahatma Gandhi Institute in Mauritius, in a ceremony held in the presence of Mauritian Prime Minister Anerood Jugnauth. On the same occasion, the Protocol on the Accession of Austria, Finland and Sweden to the Fourth ACP-EC Lomé Convention was signed due to the enlargement of the European Union on January 1, 1995. The first Lomé Convention, which replaced the Yaoundé Convention, dates back to 1975. Since then, it has been renewed three times, which attests to the durability of the special relationship established by the Convention. The number of Contracting Parties to the Convention has steadily increased. The Convention brought together the 15 member states of the European Union and 70 ACP states. The aim of the Agreement signed on November 4, midway through the Fourth Convention signed in Lomé on December 15, 1989 for a ten-year period, was to increase the effectiveness of Community support for the development of ACP states by modernizing and adapting the Convention’s instruments, without questioning the fundamental principles governing ACP/EC cooperation, particularly the principle of partnership. The Agreement also contained a new Financial Protocol (the first, lasting five years, expired at the end of February 1995) for the second five-year implementation period of the Convention.