Sir,

Ioannis Varvitsiotis argues an interesting case for the creation – beyond the European (near-) Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) – of what he calls a wider European Commonwealth for Freedom and Prosperity (ECFP) as “an improved and more elaborate version of the ‘British’ Commonwealth”.

 

Mr Varvitsiotis sees concentric circles spreading out from a nucleus, like waves in a pool. At the centre is the EU as it stands. Beyond he sees the ENP, and beyond that he proposes an ECFP. His new Commonwealth is proposed as an “outer layer” of remote if preferential relationships, in effect relegating those countries to a lesser status. If rejected for the EU, Mr Varvitsiotis says, a country could still make it into the ECFP.

 

But there is no such hierarchy within the Commonwealth. Indeed, Mr Varvitsiotis’s conception of the Commonwealth is quite alien to the real thing. His “British” Commonwealth died in 1949 when the organisation transformed the bonds of Empire into those of sovereign, freely associated states – all equal, with no centre and no periphery. Indeed, with Mozambique and Cameroon as its latest entrants, and five former German colonies in its midst, the Commonwealth is anything but “British”. It is home to 53 nations on five continents, from the tiny Pacific island of Tuvalu with 10,000 people, to India with a population of over 1bn. It accounts for a third of the world’s population, more than a quarter of its countries and a fifth of its trade. It is bound by shared values and principles, common traditions and institutions, and English as the same working language.

 

All member states commit to the Harare Principles – and to being referred to the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group if they are seen to seriously flout them. And wherever inequalities are apparent – particularly for the 32 of the 53 member countries that have populations of less than a million people – the Commonwealth actively seeks to redress them. We believe our work with the World Bank on the challenges facing small states is ground-breaking.

 

Mr Varvitsiotis writes of the shared benefits of the proposed ECFP – such as a customs union, access to EU funding, and biennial meetings of a joint parliamentary body. He then lists some of those things that would not be available to members, such as the free movement of citizens, decision-making political power, and the abolition of visas.

 

Today’s Commonwealth offers no customs union and provides access to only limited pooled funding. It has no common parliament, though it does have a vibrant and active Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. Nor does the Commonwealth offer visa-free movement of citizens. Yet its moral and political power is enormous. Heads of Government meet every two years to set mandates for ongoing work and they develop shared positions, on issues like multilateral trade. The “peoples” of the Commonwealth meet most obviously in the form of nearly 100 Commonwealth civil society organisations worldwide.

 

A successful grouping of countries should be built around a nucleus of shared principles, deep and active bonds and a capacity to address shared concerns. That’s why the Commonwealth and the EU itself have increasingly close relations – not to mention three members (Cyprus, Malta and the UK) that belong to both. It’s also why the proposed ECFP is unlikely to be anything like “an improved and more elaborate version of the ‘British’ Commonwealth”.