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The 20th Century m'zuŋ u Scramble for Independent Africa

"Veni, Vidi, Vici ",Steti - ego adduxit inimici mei"

the 1963 Yaounde Convention signed between the EEC and 18 former French and
Belgian colonies. Under the agreement, the Europeans allowed free access to their

domestic markets to products from the African members, while the latter were, at least
initially, permitted to impose restrictions on the entry of European goods into their
territories in order to protect their own infant industries.

***
Three years earlier, however, the UN Economic Commission for Africa had warned, as

related by Hansen and Jonsson, that the arrangements were likely to lead to economic
dependency by tempting the Africans "to prefer the short-run advantage of tariff

concessions [in EEC markets] to the long-run gains of industrial development". This is
because the Europeans were unlikely to keep their markets open if the Africans actually
decided to lock out EEC goods."

"Eurafrica and the Myth of African Independence." 135
Gathara, Patrick; Al Jazeera.
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“ Postwar France continued in trying to use the process of European Unification as base
of its colonial influences and managed to streamline early European development policy
according to its colonial goals.

Until the 1960s, the French governments failed to grasp decolonization and provide a
working strategy on it. Algeria was technically no French colony as it consisted of three
French Departments with about a million inhabitants of European descent, the later

pieds-noirs. The French tried to keep Algeria in their Eurafrican space and suggested in
1958 large infrastructure investments ('Constantine Plan') to maintain Algeria

economically within their realm. France was well aware that the Algerian Departments
were not viable under the conditions of the Common Market and gained some exemption
clauses in the Treaty of Rome. European integration put France under pressure, as it had

guaranteed various commitments to Algeria in the Evian Accords but had to reduce
protectionism and trade barriers according at the same time.

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Eurafrica subsequently played an important role in forging the European union and

associated treaties, as at the Yaoundé Conventions in 1958 and later.

The Treaty of Rome from 1957 was an important milestone, as France (and Belgium)
were now willing to enter a stronger European market based on the condition of

association of and the provision of European funds for the remaining colonial realm.