Values and prospects

Defining and describing such values as peace, freedom, tolerance, solidarity, justice and defence of the person, which even if they are not exclusively Christian values, are profoundly rooted in the Christian tradition: that’s the objective of “A Europe of values – the ethical dimension of the European Union”, the Report of the “Committee of Wise Men” set up by COMECE, the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community. The report was presented in Rome on 22 March by Bishop Adrianus van Luyn, President of COMECE, Monsignor Nöel Treanor, its secretary, and Mario Monti, President of the Bocconi University in Milan and former European Commissioner; Monti also sat on the Committee of experts that compiled the Report. The same press conference also served to present the Congress “Values and prospects for tomorrow’s Europe. The 50 years of the Treaties of Rome”, which COMECE is now holding in Rome (until 25 March). “SOMETHING NOBLE”. “The Church must root its theological analysis also in the spheres of competence of politics and culture”, said Msgr. NOËL TREANOR , during the presentation. That’s why “COMECE set up a Committee of wise men composed of Catholic exponents from the world of politics and culture, to which it assigned the task of drawing up” the document. “The EU needs, and at the same time deserves, the involvement of Christians as citizens. We need to make people understand that the EU is something noble: a great project within which the community method offers a valid model of world governance. The Report’s objective is to stimulate a dynamic and vigorous debate in society to bring home to all citizens what the EU has achieved so far and to tackle the challenges of tomorrow’s Europe”. The general secretary of COMECE also described the Commission’s involvement in the European institutions: “apart from regular contacts with EU politicians and administrators, we try through workgroups of experts to monitor European policies in such fields as migration and asylum, scientific research, fiscal regime and trade, energy and the environment. From these issues flow ethical and social questions of major importance for the future of Europe”. FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS. The theme of the family was touched on by Bishop ADRIANUS VAN LUYN, President of COMECE: “it is – he said – a fundamental question, on which there’s an ongoing dialogue with the European institutions, but on which the national Bishops’ Conferences also reflect and consult at the national level”. Clearly, “our preferential dialogue is with the Catholics working in the European institutions, but it’s not exclusive to them”. The bishop of Rotterdam also pointed out the importance of “an intensive dialogue between politicians and churchmen, between Christians and non-Christians, to define a hierarchy of values”, and also to evaluate “how non-negotiable values should be embodied in our world today, grasping the signs of the time”. The President of COMECE then underlined that “European citizens are so accustomed to the benefits offered by the EU that they no longer remember that their origin lies in the EU itself; indeed, they see only the interference of the EU in the domestic affairs of the nations”. In this way, he observed, “European citizens apply the principle of subsidiarity in a unilateral way, whereas it ought to imply not only rights but duties”. According to van Luyn, “we need to speak with young people today to educate them in a wider sense of respect for human life, also with an eye on the world; we need to awaken the principle of responsibility in them”. THE EUROPE OF CITIZENS. The economist MARIO MONTI insisted that “Europe is not a system devoid of values”. He also suggested that the sense of guilt from which the European institutions suffer”, especially when European citizens express “dissatisfaction and doubts”, as on the occasion of the Danish referendum on Maastricht (1992) or those on the Constitution in France and Holland (2005), is misplaced. “Citizens see the EU as a remote and costly bureaucratic machine”. That’s why we need “to bring them closer to Europe and remind them that the European project rests on an ethical vision of life and society”. In support of the thesis of a Europe “rich in values” Monti cited two examples: “hope in the new generations and the community method”. “The future generations – he explained – have in Europe a great ally against the abuses perpetrated by those in power who abuse public finance to expropriating the rights of children even before they are born. Even behind an institution like the Euro there’s a system of rules that commits governments and citizens to avoid irresponsible deficits and that favours inter-generational solidarity and not swindle”. As for the community method, “it is the expression of the values of civil co-existence, because it is the only real way to give equal opportunities to big and small countries, old and new members”. “Speaking of values – concluded Monti – is important, but it’s even more important to realise them. As a Catholic layman, it has pained me in recent years to see Europe presented, by extremist forces and also by believers, as devoid of values and even anti-religious. The opposite is true”.