The Commonwealth and the European Union in the 21st Century

Challenges and Opportunities in International Relations

Melanie Torrent, Virginie Roiron

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9781138391710
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317235910
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union? Is the Commonwealth of Nations still relevant for its very diverse member states, ranging from small island states to Australia and India? In contemporary British politics, both organisations have come under fierce criticism, sometimes leading to hasty assessments of historical experiences and current policies. Given the fact that the United Kingdom, Cyprys and Malta are members of both organisations, and that 'Brexit' would have far-ranging consequences much beyond British shores, relations between the EU and the Commonwealth have featured surprisingly rarely in major debates of international policy.

This edited volume suggests possible – and even desirable – connections between the two organisations by investing current contacts, fault lines, external critique and outside perspectives. Focusing on soft power, development, humanitarianism and modes of intervention, the authors investigate disputes over international norms and trade patterns. Through global approaches and specific case studies drawn from Asia, Africa and the Caribbean, they demonstrate where opportunities for international cooperation were missed and how useful partnerships might be found. The EU and the Commonwealth are undoubtedly very different organisations but distinctions can provide grounds for meaningful, relevant cooperation. More strategic dialogue between the Commonwealth and the EU, this volume agues, would be a valuable asset for the two international organisations, their member states and their citizens. This book was originally published as a special issue of The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs.

Introduction: The Commonwealth and the European Union: Norms, Partnerships, Circulations

MÉLANIE TORRENT* & VIRGINIE ROIRON**

*Université Paris Diderot, Paris, France

**Institut d’Etudes Politiques, Strasbourg, France

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.

Casting and Recasting Norms in the Post-colonial Era

As Amelia Hadfield, Tim Shaw and Steve Cutts discuss, both the Commonwealth and the European Economic Community (EEC)/European Union have been committed, as international organisations, to a liberal conception of international relations according to which the international system can—and to some extent, has to—be regulated by common institutions, values and principles, beyond the sole interactions or immediate interests of states. In this respect, the Commonwealth and the EU share the same type of principles, listed by Steve Cutts as being, inter alia, ‘democratic values, free trade, the recognition of the universality of respect for human rights and the role of women in all aspects of governance’. Such values and principles have been placed at the heart of each organisation’s relations with its member states, from the first Declaration of Commonwealth principles in 1971 and the Copenhagen Declaration on European identity in 1973. With the end of the Cold War, the transformation of international relations has given renewed opportunity to these two organisations to act as normative powers on the international stage, with the 1991 Harare Declaration (supplemented by the Millbrook Action Programme of 1995), the 2013 Commonwealth Charter, and the 1992 Treaty of the European Union (Articles 6 and 11), followed by the Lisbon Treaty of 2007 (which came into force in 2009). The EU and the Commonwealth have thus both updated their normative agenda, as Amelia Hadfield demonstrates. The EU has strengthened its functional institutionalisation to enhance the promotion of its values and principles, both within the organisation (towards its member states) and outside it (towards its partners); and the Commonwealth has focused on the political dimension of its development agenda, i.e. the promotion of democracy, human rights, good governance and the rule of law as not just a consequence of, but also a condition for, economic development.

At the same time, a somewhat overlooked explanation for their seemingly common normative purposes might also be found in their specific histories, marked by the imperial hegemony of the European continent over the rest of the world which has tended to shape the values and conceptions of the international system. The Commonwealth itself has been marked by its imperial legacy of institutional practices, common language, working methods and diplomacy. The creation of the EEC/EU is commonly read as an attempt to rewrite the immediate history of Europe in order to build a new unity and prevent further armed conflicts. But the integration of European states into a new common historical narrative did not question the colonial past of a number of EU members or, more specifically, the EU’s ambiguous relation to the ‘civilising mission’ which, along with the need for resources and markets, fuelled European imperial conquests in the 19th century (Nicolaïdis et al., 2014, p. 719). The EU’s contemporary international relations can only be understood if the legacy of empire on the societies of Western Europe and on the European construction process is properly assessed. Among historians, research on European and Commonwealth economic and financial cooperation at the end of empire (Schenk, 1996; Kottos, 2015) has brought to light the complex imperial and colonial origins of the European project. The relationship between Europeanisation and decolonisation is the object of intense, stimulating and ongoing scholarly debate (Hansen, 2002; Cairo and Grosfoguel, 2010; Rempe, 2011; Garavini, 2012; Hansen and Jonnson, 2012; Broberg, 2013; Dimier, 2014), particularly in the field of human rights and development policy. Back in 1977, the adoption of a Code of Conduct for European companies operating in South Africa was primarily driven by a need to protect EEC members from international criticism, as demonstrated by internal tensions and the absence of compulsory implementation (Holland, 1998). More recently, the decision to use Article 96 of the Cotonou Agreement against Zimbabwe in 2002 and the renewal of sanctions in February 2012 was read by many in the non-European world as evidence of ‘the existence of double standards’, ‘a response to British interests’ and, ultimately, as a counterproductive move in the wider region (Marangoni and Raube, 2014, pp. 482, 484; Laakso et al., 2007). In this issue, Amelia Hadfield provides a conceptual framework for the analysis of normative politics and suggests ways for international organisations to revisit the formulation of policies by the informed critique of both EU and Commonwealth approaches to such questions.

It is perhaps in the area of trade agreements and development policies that the imperial legacies of the EU can best be traced. Current networks have evolved from the negotiations for the Treaty of Rome of 1957, which established privileged commercial relations and shared development aid with the overseas territories of France, Italy and Belgium. As the Yaoundé Conventions of 1963 and 1969 renegotiated multilateral trade and the implementation of the European Development Fund (EDF) with the now independent states, the fundamental principle of reverse preferences remained entrenched, and economic decolonisation a distant prospect (Bitsch and Bossuat, 2005; Migani, 2008; Calandri, 2009; Canterbury, 2010; Whiteman and Adebajo, 2012). The preservation of strategic partnerships with newly independent states emerging in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific was key to what was then an economic union seeking national growth for its members and influence on the world markets as well as a way to manage the post-colonial transition and resist US and Soviet competition—both economic and political—in these regions. For all its limitations, the Lomé Convention of 1975 and the establishment of the Group of African, Caribbean and Pacific Countries (the ACP Group) ended reverse preferences and were accompanied by a series of measures to guarantee prices for producers and stabilise exports mechanisms (Clegg, 2002; Cumming, 2013; Migani, 2013)—an achievement in which the Commonwealth played no small part.

With the end of the Cold War, subsequent changes in global trade rules and EU enlargement, preferential trade has been increasingly replaced by the promotion of more contractual trade relations with other economic blocs—and not just on a developed/developing states basis—entailing a more affirmative emphasis on the imposition of values (Nicolaïdis et al., 2014, pp. 738–739). Among partner states, many have interpreted the normative demands attached to the new agreements as new imperialist endeavours. As Vickers (2011) showed recently in Southern Africa, Peter Clegg demonstrates the persistent imbalance both in the trade negotiations and in trade patterns between the EU and the Commonwealth Caribbean. In terms of EU–Commonwealth connections, Peter Clegg’s conclusions point to two major trends: the overall small role played by the Commonwealth in the negotiations between the EU and the Caribbean, even though Commonwealth member states dominate the region and the Commonwealth itself has become a key champion of small states on the international stage, increasingly in partnership with the Francophonie; and the hesitant role of ACP countries, partly due to a multitude of interests within the group, which scholars have sometimes failed to take into account when discussing EU interlocutors and the EU itself. Tim Shaw’s reading of the Commonwealth presence across fast-growing and increasingly active regional organisations also points to an under-used Commonwealth network in the renegotiation of commercial relations in the post-colonial era. As Young and Peterson (2013, p. 514) have said, ‘development considerations in the EU’s trade policy … have not tempered the EU’s offensive negotiating objectives’, yet far more can be done to drive the negotiating power of small economies as ‘novel players’ (Narlikar, 2010). Given the presence of Commonwealth members in both the EU and the ACP Group, the absence of a Commonwealth representation in Brussels remains a striking fact of contemporary multilateral politics. At a time when the Francophonie does have an office in Brussels and when the Commonwealth and the Francophonie staff joint small states offices in New York and Geneva, filling the Brussels void arguably needs serious and urgent consideration.

Setting Norms, Adjusting Policies, Reversing Perspectives

As Peter Clegg and Tim Shaw both argue, institutional partnerships with an economically dominant EU may no longer be relevant for ACP countries for whom China has become a prominent partner, alongside the United States. Recent scholarship has emphasised the need for the EU to give greater attention to external critiques (Orbie, 2009; Lucarelli and Fioramonti, 2010; Carbone, 2013; Fisher Onar and Nicolaïdis, 2013; Chaban and Holland, 2014). In a context in which the EU is no longer just an aid or a development provider but is itself also dependent on the global South’s markets for outlets, its political clout, i.e. its power to impose its norms, has diminished. The strategic partnership with India, for instance, is no guarantee of smooth or tangible influence for the EU and its inter-regional diplomacy (Allen, 2013; Kavalski, 2015). The EU’s too-often superior attitude to negotiations and its recent indelicate (at best) handling of India–Pakistan relations have given it very little credit among Indian policy-makers (Kavalski, 2015). European Union member states themselves tend to court new emergent economic markets, turning a blind eye to their democratic or human rights records. In the same way, the emergence of new, less normative models of international relations in the field of development assistance or trade partnerships, like those proposed by China or India for which the state—and the notion of state sovereignty—remain the cornerstone of international relations, have appealed more to the global South than the normative conditions attached to EU or Commonwealth partnerships.

Simultaneously, both the EU and the Commonwealth are faced with the relative failure of the implementation of their own norms and principles among their own members. While the Commonwealth has somewhat failed to uphold its own principles in each of its member states, the EU has been criticised for the democratic deficit of its own functional institutions. Inside (with their members) and outside (with third parties), the Commonwealth and the EU have been confronted with a similar kind of crisis of legitimacy, as normative power is not just a matter of setting norms, but, in the words of Diez and Pace (2007, p. 13), ‘will only be a positive force to the extent that others accept it’, i.e. as a legitimate actor of international politics (see also Diez, 2013).

Both organisations seem to be caught between the old Westphalian system in which international relations were regulated by states only, and the aspiration to real legitimacy as an actor in international relations, with the need for a functional structure of its own. The idea that functionalism is the way by which peace can be achieved (Nicolaïdis et al., 2014, p. 733) derives from a strong Eurocentric vision which is to be found in the origins of European construction. If the EU has served as a role model for regional organisations, the latter have seldom developed into integrated, supranational structures. In the case of CARICOM (Caribbean Community and Common Market), to cite but one example, tensions between regional integration and state sovereignty, linked to colonisation, the struggle for independence and the failed experience of the Federation of the West Indies, have led to a strictly intergovernmental model of regional cooperation that resorts to functionalism only when deemed necessary for the sake of economic integration (O’Brien, 2011, p. 647). The new ASEAN Charter of 2007 is partly inspired by European integration policies, but is essentially adapted to suit Southeast Asian specificities (Jetschke and Murray, 2012). The supranational model proposed by the EEC/EU as a paragon for regional cooperation has therefore failed to export to countries formerly under European colonial domination. As Hollis has argued, too little attention has been paid to ‘the extent to which the diffusion of global norms influences EU development policy’ and, more generally, to ‘the importance global norms have on the formulation of EU foreign policy’ (Hollis, 2014, p. 569). The EU has evolved into a hybrid international and supranational organisation (King, 1999, p. 313), both unable to project real hard power on the international stage (Rosecrance, 1998, p. 15) and longing to act as a true international actor rivalling China and the United States for trade and norms.

Similarly, in the Commonwealth, institutional functionalism is confronted with the organisation’s post-colonial history based on the achievement of independence and on the belief that ‘respect for sovereignty’ and ‘equality’ are central to peaceful and fair international relations. The Commonwealth is certainly less directly efficient as an actor of international relations (for a variety of reasons, ranging from a small budget to its minimal functional institutions) than the EU. But building on Tim Shaw’s reflection on the possibility of a Commonwealth school of international relations, it could be argued that with its multidimensional character (intergovernmental and transnational, South–South and North–South) the Commonwealth might well be better suited to globalised, post-bipolar international relation...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• 1. Introduction: The Commonwealth and the European Union: Norms, Partnerships, Circulations
• 2. Commune Consensu: A Soft Power Comparison of the Commonwealth and the European Union
• 3. The Commonwealth of Nations and the EU after the ‘Global’ Crisis: Rethinking Post-2015 ‘Global’ Development?
• 4. The Commonwealth Caribbean and Europe: The End of the Affair?
• 5. International Organisations and the Evolution of Humanitarianism: Cross-perspectives on the Commonwealth and the European Union
• 6. The International Humanitarian Regime and its Discontents: India’s Challenge
• 7. The European Union in Sudan: A Missed Opportunity?
• Comments and opinion pieces
• Index