Boris Johnson’s secret plan for the European Commonwealth as an alternative to the European Union

Iron Atlanticism, support for economic liberalism, and a decisive push toward Russian defeat and containment of Moscow: this is the identity of the countries Johnson would like to pull into a new economic, political, and diplomatic pivot in Eastern Europe.

Corriere della Seraai’s Federio Fubini underlined that there was much discussion in the Davos Forum about the plan that Johnson is said to be working on to build “a new system of political, economic and military alliances, an alternative to the European Union. which brings together countries united by distrust of Brussels and also Germany’s response to Russian military aggression.

“The prime minister first presented his idea to Volodymyr Zelensky when the Ukrainian president received him in Kiev on April 9. The European Commonwealth model that Boris Johnson has in mind would have Great Britain as the leader and would include, in addition to Ukraine, Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, as well as potentially Turkey at a later date. “Since the visit of the Prime Minister of London to Kiev, the talks have continued and the British friendship with Ukraine is becoming more and more urgent and more detailed.”

Meanwhile, from what few informed people outside London report, Johnson proposes an alliance of states jealous of their national sovereignty, liberal in economics and determined to the maximum inadmissibility to the military threat of Moscow.

The Kiev government, for its part, has not taken a stand on the British initiative, but has so far not stopped discussions on it. The Ukrainian elite is convinced that in the palaces of power in Germany and France, very few hope for the defeat of Vladimir Putin: delays in sanctions and the weapons to be sent have now opened a political gap. Therefore, Zelensky is waiting for the European summit on June 23, when the leaders of the 27 countries will be called to decide whether to recognize Ukraine as a “candidate” to formally start negotiations for membership in the European Union.

However, it is not certain that the June 23 decision will be what Ukraine hopes for, also because it would raise protests in Albania and northern Macedonia that have been waiting for years for “candidate” status. Therefore, according to some negotiators, there is another hypothesis: the leaders of the 27 member states may confine themselves to the vague statement that Kiev has a “European perspective” (the so-called “Thessaloniki formula”).

In that case Zelensky would take Boris Johnson’s alternative offer more seriously. It is also possible that rumors of these contacts are circulating now, precisely to put pressure on European leaders ahead of decisions in June.
It is also possible that the British project will not be successful, as London does not have the capacity of the European Union to financially support Ukraine, nor is it said that Poland or the Baltic countries are taking an initiative that could compromise relations with Brussels.

Johnson is certainly seeking a political dividend, a European minister notes. He says: “The prime minister hopes to have an additional card in the agreement with Brussels that he himself would like to reopen for Brexit.”

In this way London tries to upset the balance on the continent, and in doing so, may end up discovering a breaking line that now really exists in the group of 27 member countries.

That between the countries that are most resolutely helping Ukraine – the UK and Poland above all – and those that do it in a more cynical and hesitant way. According to estimates by Arianna Antezza from the Kiel Institute for World Economy, London alone has so far provided more economic and military assistance to Kiev in the war than the entire European Union.

And Poland has given more than Germany, France and Italy. Thus, Vladimir Putin’s war, already in its fourth month, begins to open the first political rifts in Europe.

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