The Agreement establishing an Association between the European Economic Community and the United Republic of Tanzania, the Republic of Uganda and the Republic of Kenya was signed in Arusha on 24 September 1969 by the plenipotentiaries of the six EEC Member States, of the Council of the European Communities and of the three Partner States of the East African Community. The German, French, Italian, Dutch and English texts, in two copies, are equally authentic. It is not the Association Agreement signed at Arusha on 26 July 1968, which never entered into force and is only recalled in the preamble. The legal basis is Article 238 of the Treaty of Rome.

Article 1 establishes the Association and aims to increase trade, thereby contributing to international trade. Title I, trade: Article 2 admits products originating in the Partner States into the EEC free of customs duties and charges having equivalent effect, without more favourable treatment than among the Member States; exceptions concern the common organisation of agricultural markets. East African reciprocity and quantitative restrictions (Articles 3 to 6) remain a framework; Protocols 1 to 4, including origin and unroasted coffee, cloves and tinned pineapple, are not reproduced as lists. Article 15 forbids internal fiscal discrimination between a Party’s own products and like products of the others.

Title II, establishment and services: Articles 16 to 20 require non-discrimination among nationals and companies of the Member States; more favourable treatment granted to a third State is extended, except where it arises from regional agreements, and subject to a reciprocity clause. Title III, payments and capital: Articles 21 and 22 authorise payments relating to liberalised trade and require equal treatment for investments by nationals and companies of the Member States. Unlike Yaoundé II, signed the same year, Arusha contains no financial and technical co-operation.

Title IV: an Association Council, with binding decisions by mutual agreement between the EEC and the Partner States, meets once a year, with an alternating presidency, and may set up a committee. Disputes on interpretation go first to the Council, then to three arbitrators. A Parliamentary Committee of the Association meets once a year on a basis of parity. Title V: the Agreement applies to the European territory of the Member States, the French overseas departments and the territory of the Partner States. Instruments of ratification and the Community’s act of notification are exchanged in Brussels. Entry into force: the first day of the month following the exchange — 1 January 1971. Duration: five years, expiring by 31 January 1975 at the latest; termination on six months’ notice. Eighteen months before expiry the Parties examine arrangements for a further period. Lomé later replaced the framework.

The text consulted is the AEI reprint of the signed instruments. The Agreement is an EEC–EAC trade association, not a treaty of accession.

Cover: the Arusha clock tower, a landmark of the city at the time of signature; we do not claim the hall. Wikimedia Commons, free licence.

Sources consulted: Arusha Agreement; Agreement establishing an Association between the EEC and Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya (AEI).