The city on the hill” “

Former adviser to Tony Blair on the European Union, with extensive experience of the inner working of government over the last twenty years, UK ambassador in Brussels for five years, private secretary of Prime Minister John Major and of three Foreign Ministers, adviser to Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, Catholic Primate of England and Wales, Sir Stephen Wall , knighted by the Queen for his career as a civil servant and foreign policy adviser, has a deep knowledge of how policy in Brussels works. We interviewed him. What do you think of the relations between Great Britain and the EU? “Great Britain has belonged to the European Union for over thirty years now and is therefore a fully fledged member of it. The heart of the British is, at least in part, in Europe, given that the Union has made a decisive contribution to the consolidation of democracy, peace and stability in Western Europe”. Don’t you think that Great Britain has a rather ambiguous attitude to the Union, that it obtains a lot from it but doesn’t want to assume its share of the costs? “No, I don’t agree. Ever since we entered the EU in the late Eighties with Margaret Thatcher we became a net contributor to the European Union. I think our role is of crucial importance in foreign policy and also in terms of the “common agricultural policy” (CAP). No one can take our place in the monitoring of international peace. Our country is often seen in the EU through an image that does not always correspond to the truth”. Can you give some example? “The idea that the United Kingdom is opposed to the social model of the other countries of the Union, for example, is an exaggeration of journalists. It’s true that Great Britain has a far more liberalised labour market than elsewhere in the EU, but it’s also true that we have a strong welfare state, more highly developed and more extensive than that existing in Italy. The reality is that the best social model for the societies in which we live is: more working opportunities for as high a number of people as possible. And if the condition for achieving this is to make the way in which we work more flexible, it’s important to proceed along this road”. How much do excessive forms of nationalism impact on this process? “For each country of the Union it’s an uphill task trying to defend its own interests in Brussels and I think this holds good as much for Great Britain as it does for the others. It’s true that geographically and historically we exist on the margins of the Union and have always resisted the temptations of the continent to encircle us. Yet the citizens of Britain are also pro-European and the historic vote in the referendum of 1975 by which we entered the EU could be repeated in identical form today. I think a part of the elite in our country is strongly pro-European”. The European Union has often been called a Christian construct because its founding fathers were all practising Catholics. Do you agree? “I think that the EU defends moral values such as peace and humanitarian aid to the poor. It’s significant that we have managed to avoid new wars and it’s important that EU aid should go to the poorest regions; in that sense Europe can be placed in the Christian tradition”. Perhaps a little less so today, in view of some laws that undermine the traditional family… “I think that a crisis of traditional values is being accompanied by strong solidarity with the poor, as demonstrated by the success of the campaign “Make poverty history”. There is undoubtedly a decline in traditional religion; people seem less willing to accept the rules dictated by the Church. I think the Church ought to reflect on what she can do to win back so many faithful. As far as the problem of divorce is concerned, a lot depends on the education we have received in our family, because it’s natural for children to follow their parents’ example. Many newlyweds today lack the necessary education for marriage. Today a lot depends on individual choices. Couples need to be convinced that when they commit themselves to marriage, this commitment needs to maintained also in times of difficulty and that a lasting union is to the benefit of children. How can these values be taught if they have not been learned in the family? I think that in this difficult situation the Church does not have an easy task to play. The Church must be the “city on the hill”: the beacon of moral values for society to follow. But she must also reach out to the masses and share everyone’s problems”.