A camel, says an old Middle East joke, is a horse designed by a committee.

The European Union is in danger of getting camels for its two new leadership positions -- president of the European Council and foreign policy High Representative -- because of the dysfunctional appointment process created by the Lisbon Treaty.

The secretive horse (or camel)-trading by which EU governments choose the 27-nation bloc's top office-holders seems designed to deter strong candidates and produce lowest-common-denominator outcomes. Some of the most able potential contenders would rather stay at home than take the key jobs to Brussels.

The treaty does not provide for a democratic election because the EU is not a state, and national governments don't want a European president with his own legitimacy. However, the rules also seem to set aside the basic principles and procedures that any private sector company or public authority would use to select the best CEO or manager.

In a normal selection process, the jobs would go to the best qualified candidates with a clear vision, relevant experience and a track record of achievement, normally after a series of rigorous interviews. But the treaty suggests that the need to share the spoils among large and small states, and countries from the north, south, east and west of Europe is more important than criteria such as ability, charisma or experience.

In choosing the persons called upon to hold the offices of President of the European Council, President of the Commission and High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, due account is to be taken of the need to respect the geographical and demographic diversity of the Union and its Member States.

Add to this the need to divvy up the top jobs among Europe's main political families (conservatives, socialists and liberals), and a growing demand for gender balance, and you have a selection process in which identifying the strongest talent is not necessarily the top priority.

Aggravating the problem is the increasingly clear message that politicians in the EU's biggest member states regard holding national office as far more attractive and important that serving the European Union. Both former German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and current British Foreign Secretary David Miliband have signalled they wish to stay in national politics, even if that means a long spell in opposition, rather than take the EU foreign policy job.  All three major European powers have nominated second-ranking politicians for the European Commission.

Furthermore, many national leaders do not want a strong personality in the EU presidency who might overshadow them, and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso is said to be not keen to have a political star as foreign policy chief (and vice-president of the Commission) for similar reasons.

After Tony Blair's high-profile bid fell flat due to criticism of his Iraq war record and of his failure to bring Britain into the euro single currency and the Schengen zone of passport-free travel, the front-runner for European Council president is now Belgian Prime Minister Herman von Rompuy. A genial centre-right Christian Democrat with a knack for finding compromises in his linguistically divided home country and a self-deprecating sense of humour, he is little known outside Belgium and has attended only two European summits. 

Due to the imperative of political balance, Van Rompuy can only get the job if a socialist is appointed foreign policy chief. There is a dearth of socialist candidates from countries that fit the geographical matrix. Former Italian Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema is one possibility, but he is a former communist, which could raise hackles among the EU's 10 new central and east European member states, and supporters of Israel regard him as too pro-Palestinian. There are even whispers of giving the job to Britain's EU Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton -- not because she knows much about foreign policy or has run a foreign ministry, but because she is socialist, female, already in Brussels and available.

France has three potential socialist contenders -- current Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, former Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine and former European Affairs Minister Elisabeth Guigou. But President Nicolas Sarkozy has already said publicly his nominee for the European Commission is conservative former foreign minister Michel Barnier, and he has enough trouble with digruntlement in his centre-right UMP party without giving another plum job to a socialist.

For all these reasons, the outcome when EU leaders meet to make the choice on November 19 is still wide open. But there is a growing risk that Europe will be led by camels rather than thoroughbred race-horses. Was this really what the authors of the Lisbon treaty intended?

Negotiations to save the planet from catastrophic climate change are heading for trouble, five weeks before a crucial U.N. conference in Copenhagen.

The European Union has been at the forefront in pressing for binding, internationally monitored reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, and funding from industrialised countries to help developing nations switch to clean energy.

"We can now look the rest of the world in the eyes and say 'we have done our job. We are ready for Copenhagen'," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso boasted last Friday after EU leaders papered over their differences over how to finance climate protection in the developing world.

Even in Europe, which last year adopted ambitious goals to cut its own output of carbon dioxide by at least 20 percent by 2020, there are signs of climate fatigue setting in.

This is partly because the Europeans have raised unrealistic expectations of a global treaty to replace the Kyoto protocol on climate change when it expires in 2012. The United States never ratified or implemented the 1997 Kyoto deal, nor did the main emerging countries.

The unresolved struggle in the U.S. Congress over a climate bill, and the reluctance of China and India to accept binding international curbs on carbon emissions mean the most that can be expected in Copenhagen is a political agreement based mostly on voluntary national pledges. Even that is uncertain. So the EU risks being stranded on its own moral high ground.

Last week's wrangle among the 27 EU leaders over how to share the cost of helping poorer states fight global warming was a foretaste of the likely discord in the 193-nation U.N. negotiations from Dec. 7-18.

The leaders agreed that it would cost about 100 billion euros a year by 2020 to help developing nations reduce carbon emissions, and that up to half of that sum would have to come from public money mostly from the industrialised world. But when it came to deciding who would pay how much within the EU, they stalled because of Europe's own wealth gap.

Poland led a cluster of nine ex-communist central and east European states that contend they cannot afford to contribute in proportion to their emissions, which are high due to a dependency on coal-fired power stations. They demanded that the EU apportion the burden based on national income instead.

That would leave wealthier west European states such as Germany, Britain and France bearing more of the cost. Unable to resolve the dispute, the EU created a working group to examine members' "ability to pay".

The Germans, the EU's biggest paymasters, are worried that Europe is seen as a soft touch. Chancellor Angela Merkel opposed putting a firm figure for EU climate aid on the table at this stage but said the Europeans would have to pay about one-third of the cost of public financing if there is a deal in Copenhagen. Many in Berlin feel that Europe has made enough concessions up-front and that it is time for the other major players -- particularly the United States, China and India -- to move.

There is also some concern that the U.S. Congress, struggling to enact a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions, will take fright at European estimates of the scale of international financing required to pay for a global deal. The Obama administration has requested only $1.2 billion to fund climate mitigation efforts overseas, while the EU estimate implies a cost of at least 10 times that much.

The Europeans papered over another internal dispute over how to shield energy-guzzling industries such as chemicals, glass, concrete and steel from unfair competition from countries that do not curb carbon emissions.

The EU has agreed in principle to hand out free carbon allowances to those energy-intensive sectors exposed to global competition, instead of making them buy pollution permits at auction, in the absence of a comprehensive climate deal. But France has led calls for Europe to go further and levy a carbon tariff on imports from states with lower environmental standards -- a move which EU critics such as Britain and Sweden see as protectionist.

So, if the Europeans cannot agree among themselves on how to share the burden, what hope is there for reaching a global accord at the UN summit?

Who will be the first president of the European Council of EU leaders? Anyone but Tony Blair. That is the only clear message to emerge from a European Union summit, where the appointments of the EU's two new senior office-holders is not on the agenda but is on everyone's mind.

The appointment process is typical of the surreal way in which the 27-nation bloc does business. The job is poorly defined in the Lisbon treaty reforming the EU's institutions, which is expected to come into force in the next few weeks.  But it is clear that most leaders are looking for a consensus-building summit chairman rather than a high-profile president of Europe.

There are no officially declared candidates. But Blair has been the front-runner for months, with the public backing of French President Nicolas Sarkozy and of the British government. He was not in Brussels on Thursday, but his name was at the centre of debate in the summit corridors, with many people determined to kill his phantom candidacy off.

Before the summit began, his erstwhile European Socialist comrades agreed, according to Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, that they would prefer the EU foreign policy chief job to go to a socialist. That effectively ruled out the presidency for Blair, since the Socialists have no chance of getting both jobs.

Veteran Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker meanwhile announced he is available for the top post even though he acknowledged he had little chance of getting it. Juncker's kamikaze candidacy looks like a suicide mission to blow Blair out of the race. The two have been engaged in a long personal vendetta fuelled by Blair's blocking of Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt's bid for the European Commission presidency in 2004, and his veto of an EU budget deal brokered by Juncker in 2005.

In British eyes, Juncker personfies "old Europe" -- a federalist from a tiny country which prospers as a sort of giant safe-deposit box at the heart of a Franco-German Europe. For Juncker, Blair embodies London's arrogant detachment from the EU. Despite his pro-European rhetoric, the founder of New Labour never brought his country into the euro single currency or the Schengen zone of passport-free travel in 10 years in power. "This is not about personal glory or an extended ego trip," Juncker told the daily Luxembourg Wort in a clear swipe at Blair's undeclared bid.

The likelihood is that neither Blair nor Juncker will find broad enough support among EU leaders, effectively cancelling each other out. That will open the way for a more consensual, insipid figure without either Blair's globe-trotting stardom or Juncker's federalist outlook. Several such potential candidates were preeening themselves at the summit.

Dutch Prime Minister Jan-Peter Balkenende, a centre-right Harry Potter look-alike devoid of charisma, was doing his best to charm Sarkozy and Merkel during the public photo opportunities. French Prime Minister Francois Fillon, whose second-fiddle role to Sarkozy means he rarely attends EU summits, was seated beaming in the limelight at the summit table in place of the French foreign minister.

Away from the summit, former Finnish Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen published a timely article in the Financial Times saying the president's job should be about interrnal consensus-building rather than external representation (in other words -- "me, not Blair"). The Baltic prime ministers agreed to seeksupport for former Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga as EU president.

In reality, the choice is likely to boil down to one of a handful of leaders sitting in the room. My money is on Balkenende as the grey man with the fewest sworn enemies. Under his premiership, the Netherlands has turned increasingly Eurosceptical and voted against ratifying the EU constitution in a referendum in 2005. But unlike Britain, it is a full member of all EU policies.

That may seem a pretty thin qualification to be the first president of the European Council,  but curiously, no one in Brussels seems to hold Dutch Euroscepticism against Balkenende the way they hold British Euroscepticism against Blair.

The EU show is back on the road. Sixteen months after Irish voters brought the European Union's tortured process of institutional reform to a juddering halt by voting "No" to the Lisbon treaty, the same electorate has turned out in larger numbers to say "Yes" by a two-thirds majority.

This is an immense relief for the EU's leadership. After three lost referendums in France, the Netherlands and Ireland, and a record low turnout in this year's European Parliament elections, the democratic legitimacy of the European integration process was increasingly open to question. The Irish vote will not completely silence those doubts. Opponents are already accusing the EU of have bullied the Irish into voting again on the same text, and of blackmailing them with economic disaster if they did not vote the right way this time.

Try this for size from a British Euro-sceptic, Lorraine Mullally of the Open Europe think-tank:

This is a sad day for democracy in Europe.  The Lisbon Treaty transfers huge new powers to the EU and away from ordinary people and national parliaments.  EU elites will be popping the champagne and slapping each other on the back for managing to bully Ireland in to reversing its first verdict on this undemocratic Treaty. But most ordinary people around Europe will not welcome this news, as they were never given a chance to have their say on the Treaty.  We should all be deeply worried about the way in which EU leaders have gone about forcing this Treaty on us.  Polls show that the majority of people across Europe want to be consulted on major transfers of power such as this - but politicians in Brussels aren't interested in what the people want.

The fact that the turnout in Ireland was higher, and the majority larger than in the first referendum may blunt such arguments. But EU leaders will clearly learn one key lesson from the Irish precedent: the days of grand treaties on ever closer European union are over. With unanimous ratification by 27 member states required, the probability of at least one country rejecting change is just too high.

For better or worse, the Lisbon treaty will be Europe's rulebook for a generation. I reckon there won't be another major overhaul of EU institutions for 20 years. Any further integration will take the form either of closer cooperation among groups of like-minded countries on issues such as defence, justice or taxation, or perhaps of limited, specialised treaties on policy areas such as energy and climate change.

The Lisbon treaty, and its predecessor, the defunct EU constitution, were never the federalist blueprints that their opponents claimed. But Lisbon does offer he prospect of somewhat more efficient leadership and decision-making in an enlarged Union. More decisions will be taken by majority vote instead of unanimity, notably on justice and home affairs. The directly elected European Parliament will have power over more legislation. And national parliaments will have a better chance to scrutinise, and send back, EU legislation.

A new long-term president of the European Council of EU leaders and a foreign policy chief at the head of a 5,000-strong diplomatic service and an 8-billion-euro budget will give Europe a higher profile on the international stage. But whether the Europeans become bigger global players hinges largely on their political will to think and act strategically, and to risk involvement in trouble spots and crises. To judge from their disjointed efforts in Afghanistan, that is still a tall order.

Europe's effectiveness will also depend on the personalities chosen to fill the big jobs. These appointments are traditionally stitched up in backroom deals between EU leaders in compromises between large and small states, northern and southern (and now also eastern) Europe, and between left and right. Of course Europe needs political balance. But it also needs strong, inspiring leadership.

If the first president of the European Council is a figure of international stature, with charisma and a successful track record in government, he or she will give the EU a bigger place in the emerging new world order. Ditto for the foreign policy chief. It is depressing to hear some officials say their prime ministers want weak personalities who won't overshadow them.

The next few weeks until the EU's October 29-30 summit will be dominated by speculation about who will get which job. When you hear the names of Tony Blair, Jan-Peter Balkenende, Paavo Lipponen, Bernard Kouchner, Carl Bildt, Olli Rehn, Michel Barnier or Hubert Vedrine, ask yourself one question: who will do the best job for Europe, giving the EU the most credible profile around the world and with its own citizens.

Germans have voted for change. A centre-right government with a clear parliamentary majority will replace the ungainly grand coalition of conservatives and Social Democrats that ran Europe's biggest economy for the last four years.

This should mean an end to "steady as she goes" lowest common denominator policies, and at least some reform of the country's tax and welfare system. The liberal Free Democrats, who recorded their best ever result with around 14.7 percent, will try to pull the new government towards tax cuts, health care reform, a reduction in welfare spending and a loosening of job protection in small business.

Conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel, a cautious centrist, made clear in her first post-election comments that she she would not allow a radical lurch to the right. She promised to be the "chancellor of all Germans" -- old and young, entrepreneurs and workers -- and said the conseravtives would be sufficiently dominant in the new coalition to prevail "in questions that affect social balance".

The new government faces tough economic challenges in what is bound to be a more polarised political atmosphere, with the Social Democrats in opposition. The economy is expected to contract by at least 5 percent this year, and export-led growth is likely to return only slowly. Unemployment is set to explode in the coming months as short-time work schemes run out. The budget deficit is set to top 6 percent of gross domestic product next year, more than twice the EU limit. So 2010 will be an extremely difficult year. But there are some problems that are even more urgent.

The first big choice involves Germany's ailing banks. Outgoing Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck admitted last week that the public-owned regional Landesbanks "continue to pose an enormous systemic risk to our market". The outgoing parliament passed a virtually useless "bad bank" law meant to encourage stricken financial institutions to put their toxic assets into state-guaranteed special purpose vehicles. The banks have so far spurned the system because it leaves the risk of losses with them rather than with the taxpayer.

Merkel and her new partners need to amend the law so that the state takes more of the risk, otherwise Germany faces a future of "zombie" banks that are too burdened with liabilities to lend to the real economy. That won't be popular, with the left bound to claim that taxpayers are being forced to bail out wealthy bankers.

Fixing the banks is more urgent than cutting taxes or curbing public spending to revive the economy. That also means merging the Landesbanks, shrinking their activities and privatising as much as possible. The Germans must also be ready to allow healthy foreign banks to buy up sickly German ones. That is the logic of the European single market, to which a centre-right government is likely to be more committed.

That brings us to the next urgent priority. The new Berlin government should reconsider the dodgy deal it clinched on the eve of the election to rescue the ailing Opel auto manufacturer. Germany promised billions of euros in state aid for a consortium of car parts maker Magna and Russia's Sberbank to take over General Motors' European arm in order to preserve four production sites and as many jobs as possible in Germany.

The European Commission has made clear that "bribing" companies to skew restructuring plans according to national interests breaches EU rules. Merkel should seize the opportunity to seek a deal with other countries with Opel and Vauxhall production sites to co-fund a restructing plan along strictly commercial lines. In the longer term, Opel will need a bigger industrial partner to achieve critical mass in the inevitable consolidation of European auto sector.

Fixing the banks and Opel will be the first two tests of whether Germany gets the change it needs. Tax cuts and welfare reform will take longer and be trickier, especially given the burgeoning budget deficit and debt mountain.

Jose Manuel Barroso promised the European Parliament that as re-elected president of the European Commission he will have more authority to fight for Europe and defend its single market against economic nationalism.

But after five years of toadying to the big member states, he will need to show more spine to enforce state aid and competition rules on Germany, Britain and France in the teeth of strong national financial or commercial interests.

The conservative former Portuguese prime minister, backed by all 27 EU governments, won an impressive absolute majority of EU lawmakers -- more than the simple majority he required. That
gives him a stronger hand when facing inevitable pressure from the big boys over the carve-up of key Commission portfolios.

Recent Commission moves to query state aid to banks (such as Dutch guarantees for ING) and scrutinise public funding of auto industry rescues (Germany's bung for Opel) are encouraging. But it remains to be seen whether Barroso, now he is no longer reliant on them for re-appointment, has the character to stand up to Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy or Gordon Brown on politically sensitive cases. In his first term, he often appeared to be a trimmer, a multilingual chameleon.

On paper, the Commission has the power to force the break-up or shrinkage of state-aided banks and prevent governments using public funds for industry to distort competition.

Barroso should start by appointing strong, independent commissioners in charge of competition and financial regulation. He must rebuff French pressure to take the policing of state aid away from the rigorous EU competition department and give it to a more indulgent super-commissioner for industry.

He cannot choose whom member states send as commissioners, but he can decide what jobs to give them. He should put the most effective survivors of his current team, Spain's Joaquin Almunia
and Finland's Olli Rehn, in key roles to guard the level playing field for business and improve financial regulation, without yielding to special interests or anti-capitalist overkill.

He will also need a strong economics commissioner to coordinate EU countries' fiscal policies and structural reforms as they emerge from crisis, and gradually work towards a single European voice in international financial institutions.

Given conservative dominance of European politics, Barroso will have more centre-right commissioners and fewer socialists than in the outgoing team. Yet paradoxically the public mood is
less economically liberal, and he will face strong pressure to allow subsidies to protect jobs.

Germany's taxpayer-funded rescue of carmaker Opel offers an early test of Barroso II's determination to uphold EU rules.  Will he stand up to Merkel, his political patron, now that he no longer needs her backing for another term?

Is France trying to stymie Jose Manuel Barroso's re-election for a second term as European Commission president?

An intriguing story in Le Monde reports that French Prime Minister Francois Fillon (pictured left with Barroso and President Nicolas Sarkozy) is considering offering his services as head of the European Union executive if Barroso fails to win majority support from the European Parliament this month. Le Monde quotes an unidentified French minister and an anonymous senior diplomat, with a comment from Fillon's office declining to speculate on a Barroso failure and saying that of course, the prime minister is interested in Europe but he hasn't put himself forward as a candidate.

What are we to make of this murky tale, published on the very day when Barroso, a conservative former Portuguese prime minister officially backed by France, began wooing EU lawmakers to give him a confirmation vote next week?

Well, Sarkozy has tried to keep Barroso off balance ever since France's hyperactive EU presidency last year. His aides have whispered poison against the Commission president, suggesting he was slow to react to the financial crisis and had to be constantly prodded into action by Paris. The French leader suggested in March there was no hurry to reappoint Barroso and it could wait until after next month's Irish referendum on the EU's reform treaty. He backed down in June and went along with the unanimous decision of EU leaders to nominate the incumbent for a second term.

There are at least three possible explanations for the latest twist:

 - it may just be another attempt to distance the French from Barroso, who has been widely cast by the French media, centrists, greens and the left as an "ultraliberal" bogeyman, whose support for light-touch regulation contributed to the crisis;

 - it could be a another warning shot from the Elysee Palace designed to keep Barroso on the defensive and pliant, ensuring that France gets a top job (the internal market or perhaps foreign policy chief)for its candidate for EU commissioner in the post-referendum horse-trading;

 - or, less likely, it could be a serious attempt to reopen the Commission presidency after the Irish referendum, giving waverers in the European Parliament a reason to postpone a vote on Barroso this month.

In any case, it is hard to imagine Fillon winning broad support for the top Brussels job. For one thing, he campaigned and voted against the Maastricht Treaty on European Union in 1992, which established the euro single currency and a common foreign policy. That would alienate European federalists, who are among Barroso's strongest critics. Many of the new member states in central and eastern Europe regard France as statist, protectionist and still hostile to EU enlargement. They would be unlikely to back a French candidate. A fluent English-speaker, Fillon has a British wife and is fiscally orthodox enough to pass muster with Germans obsessed with budget discipline.  I suspect Sarkozy would rather have a weak Barroso at the Commission, despite his avowed wish for strong European leadership in the crisis.

Could the European Union be among the big losers of the global financial crisis?

Despite signs that recession in Europe may be bottoming out, the 27-nation bloc risks emerging from the turmoil with its economic growth potential stunted, its public finances shackled by mountains of debt, and its international influence weakened.

That is the backdrop to Jose Manuel Barroso's campaign for a second term as president of the executive European Commission.  In a manifesto sent to EU lawmakers last week, he warns that unless Europeans shape up to the challenge together, "Europe will become irrelevant".

The conservative former Portuguese prime minister is  seeking a confirmation vote in the European Parliament this month, so a degree of dramatisation is to be expected. But there is no hiding the setback the crisis has dealt to European integration. Barroso has rightly put economic recovery at the top of his agenda, but he lacks powerful levers to achieve his goals at a time when the knee-jerk response in Europe has often been to revert to national economic solutions.

The recent crisis showed that there remains a strong short-term temptation to roll back the single market when times are hard, he acknowledges in the 41-page document.

Barroso is too much of a politician to name names, but he was clearly referring to the way Britain pressured state-rescued banks to lend at home and France and Germany sought to protect domestic jobs when aiding car manufacturers. Those governments deny their moves are protectionist and cite their duty to spend taxpayers' money in the national interest. But such measures pose a threat to the principles of free movement of capital and labour and fair competition.

Barroso vows to be "an implacable defender" of the EU's single market and its competition and state aid rules -- the foundation stone of European prosperity. But he does not say how he can force governments that have rescued stricken banks to restructure and dispose of them in ways that avoid distorting the level playing field for business.

Critics say the Commission president was too deferential to the major European powers in his first five-year term. Whether he will show more independence once he no longer needs their
support for his re-election remains to be seen.

His programme calls for greater economic policy coordination especially in the euro zone, and more surveillance of national budgets by Brussels, but he does not say how the Commission can persuade big member states to accept more EU supervision. He acknowledges that some new member states in central and eastern Europe have suffered a deeper recession and drifted away from economic convergence with western Europe. But he doesn't say how this can be fixed or offer a plan for those countries to join the euro zone in the near future.

Barroso rightly says that Europe will need to find new sources of growth with its post-crisis output potential crimped by stricter financial regulation, higher taxes, unemployment and demographic decline. The low-carbon "green economy", building new broadband and energy super-networks, and developing personal services for an ageing population all offer potential wellsprings of growth.

But while he advocates a "root and branch reform" of the EU budget to shift resources to these new priorities, Barroso does not say how he would stop farm subsidies gobbling up 40 percent
of community spending. The common budget is anyway likely to stay pegged at 1 percent of EU gross domestic product -- a fraction of national expenditure.

While the Europeans will struggle to redynamize a stagnant economy, they also face a challenge in shaping a new global order.

The EU prides itself on being a model of rules-based multinational governance, but its inability to agree on joint representation in international fora such as the G20 weakens its influence with emerging powers such as China and India, as well as with the United States. Barroso says the EU must speak with one voice at the world's economic top table, but he has no recipe for ending the current cacophony of eight European delegations in the G20.

As the Bruegel economic think-tank said in a perceptive memo to the next Commission president, the EU needs to reform its economic governance and centralise more policy in some
fields, but there is no appetite for such reforms in the crisis.

- Danny Sriskandarajah is Director of the Royal Commonwealth Society. The opinions expressed are his own -

In recent years the Commonwealth has become an easily derided organisation. From its inception as a clever way of easing de-colonisation to the heady 1970s and 1980s when the association showed a radical dynamism on issues like Apartheid, the international association has shown itself to be unique and useful.

However, today, the Commonwealth risks being drowned out in a more crowded field of international organisations, many with a clearer sense of purpose, more collective will and better resources.

Before the 2002 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), in Durban, South Africa, Tony Blair reportedly said he would rather be at home watching football than meeting his fellow heads of state. A candid indictment of how irrelevant the Commonwealth has become?

Polling done in seven member countries to mark the launch of a public conversation on the future of the Commonwealth shows some worrying signs. Globally, only a third of people polled could name any activity carried out by the association and only about a third of people in Australia, Canada and Great Britain would be sorry if their country withdrew altogether.

No international organisation has a pre-destined right to exist and these poll results should be a wake up call to ask whether and how this association will be relevant in the 21st century.

This year the Commonwealth is 60 years old, and some have said that the association risks easing into a low-key retirement. Yet the organisation contains some of the worlds most developed and dynamic countries: two members of the G8; two members of the G8 plus 5; five members of the G20 and one member of OPEC. Outside Japan and the USA, the cutting edge countries in information technology and e-commerce are all Commonwealth members. The booming economy of India, the world’s largest democracy, is a founding member.

The Commonwealth will never become a trading bloc, like NAFTA or the EU. But the common cultures, legal systems and regulatory frameworks across so many Commonwealth countries are a great incentive for trade and cooperation between them. The Commonwealth itself accounts for some 30 percent of world trade.

Much more should also be made of the incredible people-to-people links that exist between Commonwealth countries. Buttressing the inter-governmental Commonwealth is an unparalleled network of civil society organisations and business networks that promote the exchange of ideas, people and much more. Organisations like the OECD or APEC cannot boast such a hinterland.

On issues like climate change, the Commonwealth could offer a unique informal space for dialogue between countries that might otherwise be at loggerheads in negotiations over binding commitments. Indeed, past leaders frequently say the true value of the Commonwealth lies in the opportunity for a unique informal dialogue that happens at Commonwealth leaders’ retreats.

Access to international markets presents great opportunities for poorer countries to trade their way out of poverty. If all Commonwealth countries, from giants like Canada to minnows like Tuvalu, agreed to take a decisive and common stance on trade issues, the Commonwealth voice could be a powerful force to kick-start the stalled Doha Development Round.

Through the Commonwealth Conversation, the largest ever public consultation about the future of the Commonwealth, the Royal Commonwealth Society hopes to help the Commonwealth recapture its relevance. As it stands the organisation is not articulating its strengths, aims or ideals.

This sixtieth anniversary presents a crossroads for the organisation. It can retire from the international stage it has served so well in its first 60 years or it could reinvigorate itself with renewed purpose to face the challenges of the 21st century. We should remind ourselves of the Commonwealth’s potential, and fully utilise this network to our advantage. Whether it is through promoting shared values or an agenda to tackle shared challenges, the Commonwealth needs to show it can make a real difference on key issues.

– Paul Taylor is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own –

Pacta sunt servanda. For centuries international law has rested on the Latin principle that agreements must be kept.

Now Britain’s Conservative party, widely expected to win power in a general election next year, is vowing to go back on the country’s signature on European Union treaties. The Tories say voters were denied a promised referendum on the EU’s Lisbon reform treaty. Opponents of closer European integration — the Conservatives and the more radical UK Independence Party (UKIP) — won most of Britain’s seats in the European Parliament elections last month.

If implemented, the Tory policy would set a government under David Cameron on a collision course with its European partners that could harm Britain’s wider political and economic interests, which rely on EU cooperation and leverage.

The Conservatives have already taken a first step away from the centre-right mainstream by quitting the European People’s Party (EPP), the biggest group in the European legislature, and forming a caucus with nationalists and sceptics from Poland, the Czech Republic and other mostly east European countries.

Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, a fellow centre-right leader from a moderately Eurosceptic country, lamented that step and told The Guardian newspaper Cameron will need mainstream European partners to achieve his objectives, including on climate change. He is right.

The Tories have said that if they take office before all 27 EU states ratify the Lisbon treaty, they will call a referendum on withdrawing British ratification, which was completed by parliament last year. That would put the government in the unprecedented position of campaigning against a treaty which Britain had already signed and ratified.

It could take Britain back to the isolation of John Major’s last Conservative government. Major stopped cooperating with the EU in 1996 after British beef exports to the continent were banned over mad cow disease.

But there is a chance that disaster may be averted. Cameron must be secretly hoping that Irish voters approve the treaty in a second referendum in October and the Eurosceptic Polish and Czech presidents then sign it, averting an immediate crisis for a new Conservative administration.

If Lisbon is already in effect, the Tories say: “We would not let matters rest there.” This deliberately vague phrase gives Cameron some wiggle room. Conservative leaders have said they would demand a negotiation to return EU powers over social affairs, employment, fisheries and some aspects of justice and home affairs to national level.

That would cause a clash at Cameron’s first EU summit, since it is highly unlikely that any of Britain’s partners will agree to open talks on repatriating major competences from Brussels.

Cameron is deluding himself if he thinks Britain can expect Paris or Berlin to cooperate on financial regulation, policy towards Iran and the Middle East, carbon trading or free trade if it is at loggerheads with all its EU partners on the treaty. The United States has often made clear that Britain’s influence in Washington is directly proportionate to its influence in Europe. Britain’s neutral civil service has been conveying that message privately to the Conservatives.

The danger of a UK-EU confrontation comes at a time when London has a strong interest in shaping European regulation of financial markets to preserve the position of the City of London, which generated some 10 percent of Britain’s gross domestic product before the financial crisis. Britain does some 60 percent of its trade with the EU.

Cameron has modernised his party and shifted it towards the pragmatic centre on a swathe of policies from gay marriage to the environment and public services. But he has used Europe as one area on which he can throw red meat to the party faithful, and protect his right flank against inroads by UKIP. He promised to withdraw from the EPP when he ran for party leader in 2005.

Cameron is seeking to balance shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague, who lost a 2001 election on an anti-European platform, and pro-European cabinet veteran Kenneth Clarke, whom he brought back to the front bench for his economic competence.

Clarke said recently a Tory government would not reopen the Lisbon treaty if the Irish ratified it, and would seek instead a practical arrangement on repatriating employment rights. He was swiftly denounced by Eurosceptics in the party.

True, the governing Labour party has failed in 12 years in office to achieve Tony Blair’s objective of putting Britain at the heart of Europe, and reconciling the British with the EU.

Blair achieved some progress on EU defence cooperation and economic reform. But he never used his political capital to win public backing for taking Britain into the euro, despite his personal support for the objective. His successor, Gordon Brown, no fan of the euro, has warmed to the EU somewhat since the financial crisis struck.

Public opinion, as Blair acknowledged before he resigned, remains as Eurosceptic as ever. Grassroots Conservative members are even more hostile, as are some big Tory donors.

That constrains Cameron’s room for manoeuvre. But if he wants to maximise Britian’s international influence and avoid his first term being blighted by conflict with Europe, he should brush up his Latin and declare “pacta sunt servanda”.
(Editing by David Evans)