Post-colonial Britain and its former colonies in the European Union

The Republics of Cyprus, Ireland and Malta, now sovereign members of the European Union (EU), share a common historical feature: they have been, at a certain point of their history, part of the British Empire. This situation is in no way specific, as other current EU members, such as Denmark and Sweden, share a colonial past. What is, however, specific to these three cases is the recent character of this history: the Republic of Ireland gained its independence in 1921 (albeit not completely), the Republic of Cyprus in 1960 and the Republic of Malta in 1964. In these cases, the colonial past thus displays a double proximity: temporal (especially as compared with the Scandinavian cases) and geographic (particularly as compared with other African, US or Asian former British colonies). Ireland and Cyprus share another important resemblance: both are still torn apart by unresolved conflicts, whose maintenance can partly be explained by divisions that arose or strengthened during the British colonial period. The fact that both Cyprus and Malta are still part of the Commonwealth, and thus maintain a formal institutional link with Britain, also needs to be pointed at. The Commonwealth encompasses and organizes a web of relationships which does not substitute itself to the EU, but which introduces a certain degree of asymmetry.