The European Union (EU) is a unique economic and political partnership between 28 democratic European countries that are working together to improve the lives of their citizens. It has delivered half a century of peace, stability and prosperity, helped raise living standards, and is progressively building a single Europe-wide market in which people, goods, services and capital move among Member States as freely as within a country. With more than 500 million inhabitants, which account for one quarter of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP) and one fifth of worldwide trade, the EU is a global player. It is now the largest economy and the largest exporter and importer of goods and services in the world. As a global player, the EU has developed a differentiated and multi-layered foreign policy, using a variety of tools that range from political and security instruments to development cooperation. More than twenty years ago, EU Member States agreed to create a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). In an international and globalised world, the 28 countries that make up the EU have greater weight and influence when they act together as the European Union, rather than as 28 individual nations. The Government of Kenya and the EU have enjoyed a long-standing partnership for close to three decades. The first formal link between the EU and Kenya was forged back in 1968 at Arusha when the East African Community signed the Arusha Convention establishing trade relations between the then three EAC partner states (Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda) and the then European Community. At the start of the EU-Kenya Partnership, the main emphasis was on providing technical and financial aid to rural development and food production, development of hydro-electric power, development of feeder roads as well as training and development of technical education facilities. Today, thanks to the provision of duty free, quota free access into the EU market for goods originating from Kenya, trade is now the centrepiece of EU-Kenya relations. As a major source of development assistance to Kenya, the EU has been supportive of reform and poverty reduction policies, contributing to initiatives in the field of good governance, democratisation and human rights. The EU and the Government of Kenya are partners in championing growth for prosperity.
