East African Economic Order: How EEC–EAC Relations Shaped European and African Politics, 1967–77

Abstract

The European Economic Community (EEC), scholars have argued, was able to maintain its imperial influence by establishing trade and aid agreements with its former African colonies. The Arusha Agreement of 1969 between the EEC and the East African Community (EAC), however, shows how European and East African officials relied on each other to strengthen political and economic positions on their respective continents. Whereas East Africans wanted to highlight the efficacity of trade agreements with partners beyond Africa, their European counterparts sought to strengthen their own position within the EEC as British membership loomed. Leaders from Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda understood the Arusha Agreement with the EEC to be an act of defiance towards the former colonizer, while EEC member states wanted to use the ties with the EAC to acquire a competitive advantage over other European states, particularly the United Kingdom. This article argues that the pursuit of an East African Economic order, which combined political independence and economic interdependence, by establishing the EEC–EAC relation, did not produce European neocolonial dominance in Africa but rather led to intra-European and intra-African competition.