50th anniversary of the Treaty

“The Treaty of Rome 50 years later – What values for the European Union?”: that is the title of the seminar that Comece (Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community) is holding at Clermont-Ferrand, in France, from 9 to 11 October, at the invitation of Archbishop Hippolyte Simon, to mark the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome that instituted the Eec (European Economic Community), and in the wider context of the project “Rome 2007” which is planning a congress in the Italian capital from 23 to 24 March. FROM CLERMONT… “Placing the Treaty of Rome in its proper historical context, underlining the values and motivations of the principal actors of the period, and asking whether these same values now require new tools and institutions”: these, explain the organizers, are the aims of the meeting, during which the question of the “meaning of our living together in Europe” will also be posed. The seminar forms part of a wider project: the preparation of a congress of European dimension that Comece will hold in Rome on 23-24 March 2007, in collaboration with some Catholic organizations and movements, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, which established the Eec and was signed in the Italian capital on 25 March 1957, together with the Treaty that instituted Euratom (European Community of Atomic Energy). The partners of Comece in the initiative include Retinopera (Italy), Semaines Sociales in France, Central Committee of German Catholics (Zdk), Catholic intellectual journals, Jesuit European Office, Catholic Office of Information and Initiative in Europe (Ocipe), European network of the Dominicans (Espaces), and Ucesm (Union of European Conferences of Superiors Major). Aimed at religious and laypeople throughout Europe who are committed to the European project, the Clermont seminar will be moderated by the journalist Bernard Lecomte. The historians Alfred Grosser and Michel Dumoulin, and the president of the Semaines Sociales in France, Michel Camdessus, among others, will intervene on the circumstances and consequences of the signing of the Treaty of Rome. On Monday, 9 October, following the seminar, the young will be invited to attend the meeting, while the conference on the following day will be open to the public at large. … TO ROME . “50 years later – says a Comece statement – the Eu is in a serious political crisis, the resolution of which will undoubtedly require several years. For this reason – emphasise the bishops – the European Council of June 2007 under the Presidency of Germany will be of particular importance. Comece and the European Catholic movements intend to make their own contribution to reflection on and the revival of European integration. Its culminating moment will be the congress in Rome in 2007”. To mark the occasion, a report on the values and prospects of the continent, drawn up a Committee of wise men to be set up in September and to be composed of authoritative European Catholic personalities, will be distributed to the delegates at the congress in Rome and to the European bishops. The Congress in Rome in 2007 will be preceded by the publication of the proceedings of the seminar in Clermont and by the drafting of a manifesto by the Committee of wise men; it will be followed by debates in various countries and in the Catholic movements. THE PROJECT. Pointing out that the European Council has invited Eu leaders to adopt, at their meeting in Berlin on 25 March 2007 (the anniversary falls in the six months’ German Presidency of the Eu), a “second Messina Declaration to revive Europe”, i.e. “a political declaration that would enunciate the values and ambitions of Europe and confirm the common will to implement them, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Treaties of Rome”, the European bishops re-affirm “the commitment of Catholics to European values: values of work and economic progress, subsidiarity and solidarity, attention to the family as basic community”. Hence the objective of the project “Rome 2007”: “insisting – as the Comece statement puts it – on the duty to revive the community of values; reaffirming our support for the institutional organization of Europe; and proposing, in response to the major challenges of our time, a reflection on the policies contained in the Treaty: internal and external frontiers of the Eu, universal destination of goods, European policy for climate change, the funding of Europe, its role in world economic governance, and the European community for security”. THE TREATY OF ROME. The Treaty of Rome, instituting the Eec, was signed in Rome on 25 March 1957. It came into force on 1st January 1958. It was signed by Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and Holland concurrently with the treaty establishing Euratom. Both are therefore commonly referred to as “Treaties of Rome”. For further information: a target=’_blanck’ href=http://europa.eu/abc/treaties/.http://europa.eu/abc/treaties/.