The East African Community

Intraregional Integration and Relations with the EU

Jean-Marc Trouille, Helen Trouille, Penine Uwimbabazi, Jean-Marc Trouille, Helen Trouille, Penine Uwimbabazi

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780367616090
• eBook ISBN: 9781000389777
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Economics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book brings together African and European experts from a variety of disciplines to examine the origins and current state of the East African Community (EAC). Over the course of the book, the authors analyse the rich tapestry of intraregional relations in East Africa, the EAC's similarities with the European Union and the future challenges faced by the organisation.

Widely regarded as the most advanced and successful regional integration scheme in Africa, the EAC is an intergovernmental organisation consisting of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda and, since 2016, South Sudan. It is the oldest among Africa's regional economic communities, and among the continent's most promising growth areas, with a long history of integration, punctuated by several false starts and traumas that have profoundly affected its body politics. When initially set up, the EAC model bore a striking resemblance to the process undergone by the European Union. Now, as the EAC continues to establish its own identity, this book argues that whilst Europe's history may provide useful insights for EAC member states, the EAC experience could in turn also offer lessons for the European Union.

Covering key dimensions such as integration, co-operation, development, trade and investments, this book highlights the intricate and complex relationships between East African states, and it will be of interest to researchers working on economic development, international relations, peace and security and African studies.

Part 1

History and legal structures

1 Rethinking the collapse of the first East African Community (1977)

Lessons for the EU

Asteris Huliaras and Sophia Kalantzakos

Introduction

Much research has focused on what Africa’s Regional Economic Communities (RECs) can learn from the treaties, institutional arrangements and practices of the European Union (Farrell 2007, 2009; Haastrup 2013; Lenz 2012; Sicurelli 2016; Soderbaum and Langenhove 2013; Storey 2006). However, very little attention has been paid to what Africa’s regional integration efforts can teach the rest of the world – including the EU.

This chapter focuses on the first East Africa Community (1967–1977) – at its time the most sophisticated regional integration scheme in Africa and one of the most promising RECs in the world. Our main argument is that the history of the collapse of the EAC in 1977 can provide important lessons for European integration – especially now that the EU faces various challenges ranging from growing economic disparities to the rise of populist parties.

From one point of view, the countries that formed the EAC in 1967 have started from where Europe was heading in the 1990s: with a common currency, a single market, co-ordinated central banking, a mechanism for redistribution, a joint Legislative Assembly and even a shared university. From another point of view, the EAC was always an intergovernmental organisation without a powerful supranational institution like the European Commission. Writing in the early 1960s, Joseph Nye (1963: 477) has argued that a comparison of the EAC with the European Economic Community ‘can be misleading, for in some ways East Africa is much less integrated than Europe, in others perhaps more.’ In the 1970s, the EAC attracted much admiration, and at the time of its dissolution several countries had applied to join. But all this quickly unravelled as the erstwhile partners lapsed into conflict. Finally, after some years of decline, the EAC collapsed (1977).

The first part of this chapter offers an introduction to ‘disintegration theory.’ The second part analyses the causes of the EAC’s collapse. And the third, based on the experience of the ‘first EAC’ (the organisation was revived in 2000 with the signing of another – and different – Treaty), attempts to reach some wider conclusions for regional integration efforts with particular reference to the EU.

Integration and disintegration theory

Many theories have attempted to explain the process and outcome of regional integration – though usually focusing exclusively on Europe. Functionalists like David Mitrany (1976) saw integration as a self-sustaining process, arguing that co-operation in specific economic policy sectors leads inevitably to greater integration through processes of ‘spill-over’ from one policy area to the other. Neo-functionalists added to the process of political spill-overs in the perceptions of pressure groups, research communities and political parties (Haas 1976). Proponents of intergovernmentalism claimed that states consciously pool sovereignty to supranational institutions in order to promote their interests. Alan Milward (1999) has persuasively argued that European integration has strengthened rather than weakened European states. Intergovernmentalism was successful in explaining radical reforms aiming at more integration (like the Maastricht Treaty) by arguing that when state interests converge, the integration pace increases, and when they diverge, integration slows down.

Liberal Intergovernmentalism also identified the states as key actors with clear preferences (Moravcsik and Schimmelfennig 2009). However, it argued that it is through bargaining, side-payments and package deals that progress to further integration is achieved. In contrast to intergovernmentalist arguments, New Institutionalism emphasised the autonomy of regional institutions in the integration process, their capacity to bridge differences and build consensus and their ability to sustain and promote integration. Keohane and Nye (1993: 2–5) have shown that these institutions can ensure permanence by facilitating and keeping agreements, monitoring compliance, reducing uncertainty and stabilising expectations. Finally, advocates of Comparative Federalism underlined the importance of a sense of common identity as a factor limiting centrifugal pressures – especially during crises (Kelemen 2007: 61; Webber 2014: 349–50).

Most regional integration theories have focused on the European experience and – explicitly or implicitly – presumed that increasing European co-operation will eventually end in an enduring set of regional institutions (Schmitter and Lefkofridi, 2016). Interestingly, they are not in agreement as to what integration actually means. As Jan Zielonka (2014: 22–23) has written, ‘some scholars argue that integration is merely about increased economic and social interactions, but others suggest that it is about building a European super-state.’ And added: ‘If we do not really know what integration implies, how can we define the opposite process?’ (Zielonka 2014: 23).

Zielonka (2014: 22) criticised the optimism of theorists noting that ‘though there are many theories of European integration’ there is ‘practically none of European disintegration.’ This claim was at that time partly true. Today it is partly wrong: increasingly, a number of scholars (including Zielonka) have tried to understand the problems facing Europe and analyse the turn in EU preference formation from ‘permissive consensus to constraining dissensus’ (Hooghe and Marks 2009).

Zielonka (2014: 24–30) identified three possible scenarios for the Union’s future: firstly, the EU could collapse spectacularly; secondly, it could try to address problems, but end up making things worse; or it could suffer from sustained benign neglect or ‘muddling through’ with not so benign implications. His conclusion was that in even the best scenario, the European integration project by and through the EU will become increasingly irrelevant.

As in the case of integration, scholars adopted different definitions of ‘disintegration,’ ranging from a decline in the range of common policies and an increasingly limited capacity of EU organs in making decisions against the will of individual members (Webber 2014: 342) to the total collapse of the Union (Zielonka 2014). Nevertheless, they have identified causal mechanisms and created conceptual frameworks, building a constellation of ideas that could be grouped in a loosely defined ‘disintegration theory.’

Among the most important works are those of Hooghe and Marks (2009) that focused on a growing conflict between elites and masses. They argued that as economic integration increases beyond a certain point, identity politics and identity-based political mobilisation become important. Inspired by Stefano Bartolini’s work, Vollaard (2014) has examined the dynamics of political community-building as a cause of disintegration emphasising the EU’s weak power of ‘territorial closure,’ meaning its inability to ‘lock-in resources and actors’ (such as capital and Member States). Webber (2014) has underlined the interaction between domestic politics and the role of hegemons, with particular reference to the importance of domestic politics in Germany – the so-called ‘reluctant hegemon.’ Jones (2018) has attempted a synthesis of these views based on Gunnar Myrdal’s ideas. However, none of these approaches is based on studies of non-European integration failures like the 1977 collapse of the East African Community.

The next sections of this chapter examine the formation and the demise of the EAC.

The creation of the EAC

The common colonial administration under Great Britain played a major role in establishing a significant degree of co-operation in East Africa (Burton and Jennings 2007). In 1917, the colonies of Kenya and Uganda formed a customs union that Tanganyika joined ten years later. In 1947 the East Africa High Commission was created for the joint administration of infrastructural facilities such as railways, roads, ports, and posts and telecommunications. In short, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda inherited from the colonial era a common market with a more or less uniform external tariff, a common currency, as well as a number of common services in transport, communication and research. However, from the very early stages of co-operation, there were disagreements among the member countries for the distribution of benefits (Rotberg 1963: 145–9).

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, ‘there was perhaps no part of Africa where a greater proportion of senior African political leaders regarded themselves as Pan-Africanists’ (Crowder 1984: 122). The list includes Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Milton Obote of Uganda, Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, Tom Mboya of Kenya, who had chaired the 1958 Accra All African Peoples’ Conference, Oscar Kambona, independent Tanganyika’s first foreign minister and many others. However, it was not until 1958 that there was a serious attempt – resulting largely from a Nyerere initiative – to create a Pan-East African political party which would unify all existing parties. The effort ended in failure.

Still, in June 1960, Nyerere offered to delay Tanganyikan independence until all three major East African territories could become jointly independent as a federal state (Crowder 1984: 123). Soon after, the intergovernmental East African Common Services Organisation (EACSO) was created, replacing the old colonial arrangements. In June 1963, Obote, Nyerere and Kenyatta declared their intention to federate – though Kenyan independence would not be delayed. The idea was that a federation would strengthen self-reliance, consolidate independence and reinforce the negotiating power of the three states in international affairs. The idea was that regional federation was in tune with Pan-Africanist ambitions. However, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana argued that the federation violated the Organisation of Africa Union spirit and undermined Pan-Africanism, disagreeing publicly with Nyerere. At some point, Obote seemed to share Nkrumah’s view.

From the very beginning, Tanzania and Uganda had some reservations, fearing that Kenya which had inherited from the colonial era a relatively well-developed infrastructure and an industrial base largely owned by a sizeable European settler community, could dominate the affairs of the federation. Thus, they asked for a more equitable integration process that could promote economic growth in the less advanced regions. As Crowder (1984: 454) argues:

Whether or not it was the common market that gave Kenya the distinct advantage that she enjoyed in the 1950s (rather than the accidents of geography and history and the attractions of the European community for international capital), Uganda and Tanganyika had increasingly become resentful at her greater development.

By the mid-1960s, increased bitterness in Tanzania with the failure to federate in a balanced way became present in EACSO, where Dar es Salaam representatives complained that rising imports from Kenya were threatening the viability of the local industry.

The three leaders made efforts to overcome these complaints. The Kampala-Mbale Agreement of 1964 provided for quotas in East African trade and introduced a licensing system to encourage investment in less industrially developed regions (Robson 1968: 149–54; Hazlewood 1975: 64–8; Eken 1979: 37). However, the Agreement was not implemented (Kenya failed to ratify it) and the Common Market seemed to reach the verge of collapse.

Finally, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda agreed to a more equitable integration process. On 6 June 1967, the Treaty for East African Cooperation was signed in Kampala, establishing the EAC. It was agreed to abolish all trade restrictions on intra-Community trade, to maintain a common external tariff, to harmonise monetary and fiscal policies and to co-ordinate development planning.

The three countries failed to find a system of East Africa-wide central banking and agreed not to re-establish the common currency – the East African shilling had been replaced by national currencies in 1966 (Hazlewood 1979: 42).

Notwithstanding this, they agreed to co-ordinate their economic policies in order to safeguard current transactions at par values. In order to promote a balanced industrialisation, the Agreement created two mechanisms. The first was a ‘transfer tax’ on intra-Community trade aimed at giving limited protection to industries in the less developed states against competition from the more developed. The transfer tax allowed a state with a trade deficit to impose a tax on the other state’s goods: it was, in an analyst’s words, ‘a euphemistic term for the imposition of limited inter-country tariffs’ (Robson 1967: 4). The second mechanism was the establishment of an East African Development Bank whose aim was to allocate investments disproportionally in favour of Tanzania and Uganda. Finally, the three countries decided to create four autonomous corporations: the East African Railways Corporation (EARC), the East African Harbours Corporation (EAHC), the East African Ports and Telecommunications Corporation (EAP&T) and the East African Airways Corporation (EAAC). Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda shared equally ownership and control.

In short, the three states agreed to maintain a unified approach towards external trade, fiscal and monetary policy, transport and communications infrastructures. However, the Agreement did not provide for free movement of capital or labour and did not cover agricultural products (Eken 1979: 37).

Although in the EAC’s initial yea...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations and acronyms
• About the contributors
• Preface
• Introduction – A journey towards regional integration
• PART 1 History and legal structures
• PART 2 The economics of integration
• PART 3 Politics of integration
• PART 4 Social integration and civil society
• Index