The Commonwealth of Nations and the EU after the ‘Global’ Crisis: Rethinking Post-2015 ‘Global’ Development?

Abstract

The continuing ‘global’ crisis has accelerated divergences between regions, especially between the ‘rising’ global South, the European Union (EU) of the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain) and Cyprus, which belongs to both the Commonwealth and the EU. This article studies the emerging ‘vertical’ divergences between the EU and the global South, especially around the so-called Economic Partnership Agreements, and the parallel ‘horizontal’ divergences among Anglophone, Francophone (the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie) and Lusophone (the Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa) Commonwealths, with their inheritance of emulation and competition. It focuses on the possibilities of enhanced human/citizen security to propose an analysis that challenges established perspectives and points towards prospects for Commonwealth ‘schools’ of international relations/development.

Key Words:

• eurozone crisis
• development
• non-state actors
• partnerships
• security
• frontier markets
• Sustainable Development Goals
• BRICS
• PIIGS

Notes

1. Not BRICS, i.e. South Africa is not included.

2. Symptomatically, the new ACP president for 2015–20 is Dr P. I. Gomes from Guyana, and the Caribbean was the first region to agree an EPA.