Introduction

This book is about the development of European Community trade policy between 1963 and 1973 and how developing countries were affected by it. It is also about the strategy, and to a lesser extent the tactics, pursued by developing countries during the same period in an attempt to get a better deal for their exports to the Community and other developed countries. It is about bargaining, and about power and weakness: the relative weakness of developing countries in the face of rich country governments’ obstinacy, and the relative weakness (at least during the period under discussion) of pressure within the Community towards greater freedom of access for ldcs. And it is about the way the Community takes – or fails to take – decisions.