The implementation of the EU's development policy takes two main forms: Firstly, regional agreements granting certain priviledges and secondly, action at world level.

1.Regional agreements

These include the Lome Convention with 71 African, Carribean countries and Pacific countries, and agreements with the Maghreb and Mashreq countries.

The regional policy is characterized by certain specific features which may be summarized as follows: the agreements cover all forms of action (commercial, technical, financial, cultural and, in the most recent agreements, political dialogue); they are enshrined in international treaties ratified by the parliaments concerned; the countries benefiting from them decide themselves what use they wish to make of the various cooperation instruments placed at their disposal and finally, this type of cooperation is offered to the developing countries in specific geographical areas.

2.Action at world level

This includes the trade agreements of various types with the latin American and Asian countries, the Community system of generalized tariff preferences, financial and technical aid to Asian and Latin American developing countries, humanitarian aid, special funds and the fight against hunger in the world. This action therefore covers both cooperation of a type affecting many or all developing countries(e.g. generalized preferences and food aid) and speicific cooperation instruments designed to establish relations suited to each country(e.g.trade agreements with various Asian and Latin American countries) and with certain groups of countries (in Latin Anerica with Mercosur, the Andean Group and the Central America and in Asia with ASEAN)