ABSTRACT
After Edinburgh in 1997 and Malta in 2005, the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) on 27-29 November 2015 will again take place in a European Union (EU) member state.1 As the debate on a possible United Kingdom exit from the EU unfolds, the relevance of Commonwealth-EU dialogue is likely to gain new importance for all concerned, including the participants in the four key forums now organised alongside the governmental proceedings-People’s, Youth, Women’s and Business. Back in July 2013, the Royal Commonwealth Society’s Conference on ‘Europe and the Commonwealth: How can Britain make the most of both worlds?’ emphasised two key aspects of EU-Commonwealth relations. First, the United Kingdom, Malta and Cyprus share membership of both organisations but this connection does not translate-at least not obviously and/or not yet-into any sort of meaningful ‘“link-up” in the EU’ (Royal Commonwealth Society, 2013, p. 5), to quote Michael Sippitt, the founder of the Commonwealth Environmental Investment Platform. There is no such thing, concurred Geoff Martin, Advisor to the Commonwealth Secretary-General, as a ‘Commonwealth bloc within the EU’ (Royal Commonwealth Society, 2013, p. 3). Second, the EU and the Commonwealth are fundamentally different organisations, and ill-informed comparisons can be detrimental to sound political debates on the future both of joint members and of the organisations themselves. In the case of the United Kingdom, as Geoff Martin argued, the question of a stark choice between the EU and the Commonwealth largely comes from misconceptions of these organisations and vague notions of their history, structures, remit and impact, leading to a variety of discourses based on exclusivity and competition (Royal Commonwealth Society, 2013, p. 5; Bennett, 2014). Contributors to this issue all demonstrate that the EU and the Commonwealth are,
indeed, two very different kinds of international organisation. The former is geographically based, with variations (rather than gulfs) in economic development, while the latter spans all continents, bringing together the smallest units of statehood in the world, some of the world’s most dynamic emergent economies, and a number of members of the global North. Institutionally, the EU has developed into an increasingly integrated body endowed with law-making powers, while the Commonwealth works by consensus
and has no legally binding processes. The historical and contemporary debates on the United Kingdom’s position and policies in both spheres have tended to generate a distorted narrative on the identity of the two organisations, and infused with symbolic meaning and emotive bias rather than pragmatic logic and historical analysis. Too little attention, for instance, has been paid to the evolutions, fluctuations and redefinitions of the European and Commonwealth projects over the years, and to the emergence of the European idea in the United Kingdom in the interwar years (despite notable exceptions, see May, 2001 and Le Dréau, 2012). Debates have also suffered from too narrow a definition of the Commonwealth and the EU, too strict a focus on their institutions and structures, and too marginal an interest in their ideals, policy objectives and final outcomes. This issue does not primarily seek to provide structural comparisons between the EU and the Commonwealth. Rather, it postulates that distinctions provide grounds for meaningful, relevant cooperation between two bodies which share members, spheres of policies and influence, and a number of interests. It therefore seeks to suggest possible-and even desirable-connections by investigating current contacts, fault lines and, most importantly perhaps, the importance of external critique and outside perspectives for the reform and relevant survival of both organisations.
