On 30 January 1975, Claude Cheysson, Member of the European Commission, Garret FitzGerald, Irish Foreign Minister and President of the EEC Council of Ministers, and Babakar Ba, Senegalese Finance Minister and President of the ACP (African, Carribean and Pacific countries) Council of Ministers, discuss the problem EEC-ACP trade in sugar.

On 3 February 1975, German daily newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung comments on how the new trade relations will work between the nine Member States of the European Economic Community (EEC) and 46 African, Carribean and Pacific (ACP) countries.

On 12 February 1975, the Undersecretary of State to the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hans-Jürgen Wischnewski, expresses his satisfaction with the success of negotiations on a cooperation policy between the Member States of the European Economic Community (EEC) and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries.

On 27 February 1975, the Togolese press leads with the negotiations for the establishment of a convention between the European Economic Community (EEC) and 46 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. For a few days, Lomé, the capital of Togo, becomes the ‘capital of cooperation between 508 million people’. The Lomé Convention provides for a system of cooperation combining development aid, industrial and technical trade cooperation and financial assistance. It guarantees that export revenues of the 46 ACP countries will remain stable, despite the risks of poor harvests or falling prices.

On 28 February 1975, 46 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) States and the nine Member States of the European Economic Community (EEC) sign a cooperation convention in Lomé (Togo) .

On 28 February 1975, General Étienne Eyadema, Togolese President and Head of Government, welcomes Claude Cheysson, European Commissioner with special responsibility for development, and François-Xavier Ortoli, President of the European Commission, upon their arrival in Lomé for the ceremony to mark the signature of the first EEC-ACP convention.

On 28 February 1975, François-Xavier Ortoli, President of the Commission of the European Communities, delivers a speech during the ceremony to mark the signature, in Lomé, of the first Convention of cooperation between the Member States of the EEC and the ACP countries.

On 28 February 1975, Babacar Ba, President of the 46 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) States and Minister for Finance and Economic Affairs of Senegal, delivers a speech during the signing of the Lomé Convention for economic cooperation between the nine Member States of the European Economic Community (EEC) and the ACP States.

On 1 March 1975, French daily newspaper Le Monde describes the main provisions of the first Lomé Convention, signed on 28 February 1975 in the Togolese capital by 44 African, Carribean and Pacific countries and the nine Member States of the European Economic Community (EEC).

On 1 April 1976, in its coverage of the entry into force, the same day, of the first Lomé Convention, the daily newspaper Luxemburger Wort describes the procedures for the new economic relations between the nine Member States of the European Economic Community (EEC ) and the African, Carribean and Pacific (ACP) countries.

In May 1977, the monthly publication 30 jours d'Europe gives a provisionally positive account of the application of the first Lomé Convention on EEC-ACP cooperation.

Table tracing the development of the cooperation policy followed by the European Economic Community (EEC) between the entry into force of the Treaties of Rome and June 1977.

In the mid-1970s, the European Economic Community (EEC) sends aid to the starving peoples of the African Sahel.

In this interview, Jean-Jacques Kasel, Legation Attaché in the Luxembourg Foreign Ministry from 1973 to 1976, sets out the issues surrounding the negotiations that led to the signing of the first Lomé Convention on cooperation between 44 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states and the nine Member States of the European Economic Community (EEC).