CONFIDENTIAL
9
DSR 11C
ii)
a regional group. The scope may not be great, but it
might find some support among both old and new
Commonwealth members: Australia has been keen on regional
meetings of Asian and Pacific countries; and Jamaica
was disappointed that more progress towards regionalism
was not made at Melbourne.
Shorter and possibly less frequent meetings. CHGM might
last for five or six days rather than the national
eight; and might meet every three years instead of every
AN necessarily attend for other year; the Prime Minister might
not all of each meeting. Commonwealth Finance Ministers
(CFMS) might meet every other year; and agriculture,
health, education and law Ministers every four years.
CFMS might also be held in the same place as the IMF
and World Bank meetings, even if this were not in the
Commonwealth, rather than in a separate Commonwealth
capital.
iii) For all meetings a return to the informality and privacy
of earlier Commonwealth meetings, in order to encourage a
genuine exchange of views on topics of interest.
iv)
The CHGM communiqué might be much shorter, and refer to
the topics discussed, without going into details. If
there were one or two topics on which Heads of Government
wanted to make a clear statement, this could, as with
the Melbourne Declaration, be issued separately.
To consider reducing the financial cost of the Common-
wealth to Britain, eg. by reducing our percentage
contribution to the Commonwealth Secretariat's expenses
(though it might be better to play this card only if we
were faced with an unacceptable escalation in the
Secretariat budget).