Mohammad Mansouri Moghaddam

The European Economic Community (EEC), established on March 25, 1957, under Articles 131–136 of the Treaty of Rome, fostered extensive trade relations with various countries through mechanisms like the Common External Tariff (CET). The Middle East, with a 60% trade growth in the 1960s, was a key region, with Iran playing a significant role. Iran’s mission to the EEC opened in Brussels on March 20, 1962, and the trade agreement signed on October 14, 1963, under Articles 111 and 114, reduced CET and allocated non-discriminatory quotas for Iran’s exports, carpets, dried raisins, caviar and dried apricots), boosting non-oil exports by 20–30%. This agreement increased Iran-EEC trade from $1 billion in 1963 to $5 billion by 1979, though oil dependency (95% of exports) and trade deficits ($10–20 billion in the 1970s) posed challenges and kept Iran as a raw material exporter. This study, using a historical and descriptive-analytical approach based on archival documents, examines the overall economic impacts (negative trade balance) and positive effects of the 1963 agreement on export items and shows that the 1979 Revolution and non-renewal of the agreement reduced non-oil exports.