E.E.C. Move To ‘Tidy Up’ Association Agreements

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31764, 22 August 1968, Page 5

E.E.C. Move To ‘Tidy Up’ Association Agreements

(From HOWARD WILLIAMS in Brussels) Negotiations for association agreements between the European Common Market and Malta and Malaysia are the latest stage in what has been seen in some circles as a Six take-over bid for the New Commonwealth.

Last month the Common Market signed an association agreement with the East Afri. can Common Market of

Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. This agreement complemented the already signed association agreement between the Six and Nigeria. And now Malta and Malaysia hope to join the throng of new Commonwealth States associated with the European Economic Community. But the real decision day for the Common Market’s influence over the Commonwealth is now expected to be May 9, 1969. This is the date set for the renewal of the Yaounde convention (which links the Six with 18 non-Commonwealtb African States and Madagas. car), the still unratifled Lagos agreement with Nigeria and the Arusha agreement with the three East African States Determining Policy

Now the Brussels negotiators are expected to seek agreements with Malta and Malaysia which will also be renewable on May 9, next year.

The likely effects of the renewal agreement are threefold:

(1) The European Common Market will, for the first time, be able to unify all agreements with non-European associated territories and therefore determine its own future policy on world-wide association agreements.

(2) It will set up within the Commonwealth a wideranging community which looks to London for historj and tradition, but to Brus. seis for trade and economio development: and (3) Possibly a new political and economic destination fo> the African continent. At first sight, these points may seem a tall order. But taking them in sequence they prove logical. First, the Six wants to “tidy up” its complicated and varied systems of agreements. It has already done this on the domestic front with the merger of the E.E.C., the Coal and Steel Community and Euratom. May 9 therefore provides an ideal opportunity to continue the tidying up process with the merger of all intercontinental trade, development and political agreements. Setting Pattern Once this is done, the pattern will be set for any further Afro-Asian agreements

with the Six. These will automatically fall In to the general agreement for Africa as a whole.

The second point provides for the setting up of a community within two communities: a Commonwealth group associated with the Common Market.

This group would look to London for its historic ties but to Brussels for trade. The group would also fill a large gap in the European Community’s external relations.

Until the signing of the Lagos Agreement, all association agreements with nonEuropean states were with former colonial territories of France, Belgium and the Netherlands.

The gap is now being filled by former British colonies. And this leads to the third point: Europe carved up Africa to suit its own purposes, now it must help that continent in uniting its economies and trade.

Together with, or even apart from, the efforts of the Organisation for African Unity, the E.E.C.’s current bid to unite Africa as a trading bloe has obvious political overtones.

The net result, as seen by European leaders today, is that Europe and Africa will develop side-by-side as continents rather than clumsy conglomerations of states.