A French-British Commonwealth instead of a Franco-German led EEC

From Wikipedia- "In September 1956, due to a common foe during the Suez Crisis, an Anglo-French Task Force was created. French Prime Minister Guy Mollet proposed a union between the United Kingdom and the French Union with Elizabeth II as head of state and a common citizenship. As an alternative, Mollet proposed that France join the Commonwealth. British Prime Minister Anthony Eden rejected both proposals and France went on to join the Treaty of Rome, which established the European Economic Community and strengthened the Franco-German cooperation."

What if the Anglo-French Task Force had been successful organization combining the British Commonwealth and French Union under Elizabeth II as head of state had derailed the formation of the predecessor of the European Union? Would France having a common citizenship with the British and being a Commonwealth member lead to common citizenship with Australia, Canada, New Zealand, etc along with some of the more progressive or ambitious French Union members as well?

Could this have shaped a world more united in some ways lifting up third world countries around the globe? Possible butterflies- South Africa pressured to abandon apartheid... Anglo-French alliance becomes a "third way" between Soviet Union and US... NATO is not needed... What about Spain when Franco dies... Italy and Greece succumbs to semi-dictatorship without EEC support... West Germany not an economic powerhouse, or it does and is hostile to Anglo-French...
 
I was reading about this this morning. Pretty interesting stuff

In the short term, I don't think if would make NATO redundant, what with all the Marshal Plan money coming in.

In the long term however, I see big ripples for Germany. Instead of the ECC pacifying the Franco-German tensions that plagued the two countries for centuries, It probably would continue to this day.

Would this mean another revanchivist Germany? Who knows.
 
The big problem with this is I doubt most people in the potential Union would be up for it - maybe you could get France in the Commonwealth, if the French were willing to accept a monarch as a figurehead chairman (that's a big if). You could possibly wank that one in. If the remaining French Empire joins the Commonwealth and the French are big on making it mean something other than a talking shop, that could be a pretty big butterfly.

The EEC would still exist but we've just ensured it's smaller and more dominated by Germany. The combined muscle would allow Britain & France to attempt a "third way", not a very powerful third way but enough to change some things - possibly not for the better if Britain/the Commonwealth get dragged into wars in Algeria etc.
 
The big problem with this is I doubt most people in the potential Union would be up for it - maybe you could get France in the Commonwealth, if the French were willing to accept a monarch as a figurehead chairman (that's a big if). You could possibly wank that one in. If the remaining French Empire joins the Commonwealth and the French are big on making it mean something other than a talking shop, that could be a pretty big butterfly.

The EEC would still exist but we've just ensured it's smaller and more dominated by Germany. The combined muscle would allow Britain & France to attempt a "third way", not a very powerful third way but enough to change some things - possibly not for the better if Britain/the Commonwealth get dragged into wars in Algeria etc.

I think when Rab investigated this idea, he concluded that this wouldn't work out...
 
One interesting thing is that they were effectively already in one in 1940 - the Bank of England guaranteed unlimited convertibility of the Franc to Sterling for the duration of the war, and there was joint allocation of resources and the like. That sort of thing is actually very hard to get out of afterwards, so I suspect had the Germans lost the 1940 battles in France <insert gratuitous plug for my timeline here> the British and French might well have found themselves stuck in just such a commonwealth with no way out. You aren't likely to see big political mergers, but that's hardly the OTL story of the EU anyway - it's always been about economics and resources.
 
I'd say "not have Eden as PM" but I'm not sure if any plausible PM would be up for this - Tory nor Labour (it was Labour IIRC who first went "PBBBT" about the EEC's predecessor). Not unless something makes further Franco-Britain teamups seem necessary, like if Suez (or an equivalent) worked.
 
An alternate EEC/EU that formed off an Anglo-French alliance would be very different. It would include (at least initially) the remaining colonies both nations had, and would have a rather different outlook on the world.
 
And it might butterfly away a lot of Britain's decolonisations - or get us more and bloodier wars to keep them (we were relatively lucky there)
 
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