Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday urged Commonwealth leaders to make her son, Prince Charles, the group’s next head, amid expectation that the 53 leaders will discuss succession on Friday.
“It is my sincere wish that the Commonwealth will continue to offer stability and continuity to future generations, and will decide that one day the Prince of Wales [Prince Charles] should carry on the important work started by my father in 1949,” the queen told the leaders as she opened a biennial summit on Thursday.
British media said the Commonwealth leaders were likely to accept the queen’s wishes when they meet behind closed doors at Windsor Castle, a royal residence outside London, on Friday.
The acceptance of Charles to be the next ceremonial head of the group “is now widely considered a foregone conclusion,” The Telegraph reported, adding in a commentary that he was the “one person qualified” to succeed the queen.
The queen, who turns 92 on Saturday, said she saw “with pride and satisfaction, that this is a flourishing network.”
“We are one of the great convening powers… and we seem to be growing stronger year by year,” she told the 53 heads of government, including British Prime Minister Theresa May and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
She highlighted Commonwealth initiatives including a “blue charter” to protect the marine environment, saying the British royal family was “proud to play a part” in them.
May paid tribute to the queen’s “service and dedication” to the Commonwealth, which Elizabeth has headed since 1952.
“You have been true to the deepest values of the Commonwealth – that the voice of the smallest member country is worth precisely as much as that of the largest; that the wealthiest and the most vulnerable stand shoulder to shoulder,” May said in a speech.
“For your service, for your dedication, for your constancy – we thank you.”
May earlier urged the other nations at the two-day summit to follow Britain’s plan to end the sale of plastic straws, drink stirrers and plastic-stemmed cotton buds.
“Plastic waste is one of the greatest environmental challenges facing the world, which is why protecting the marine environment is central to our agenda at the Commonwealth heads of government meeting,” she said.
On Wednesday, May apologized to 12 leaders of Caribbean nations following an outcry over Commonwealth migrants who moved to Britain as children more than 50 years ago but were recently denied residency and healthcare rights under new immigration rules, often because they had never applied for British passports.
A political row over this “Windrush generation” of migrants – named after the first ship carrying Caribbean migrants to Britain in 1948 – overshadowed Commonwealth ministerial meetings earlier this week.
Most of the 53 states in the Commonwealth, which was formed in 1949, were once ruled directly or indirectly by Britain.
dpa