Lack of conflicts?

The first European Council, held in the month of March under Slovenia’s presidency – one of the ten Countries which entered the EU in 2004 – has received scarce media coverage. The 27 heads of government and State made an effort to convey a message of unity avoiding negative sensationalistic news, which could have jeopardized the ratification process of the Reform Treaty. The lack of conflicts between the parties, according to this media approach, does “not” hit the news. On the Tuesday which preceded this Council, Great Britain’s House of Commons adopted the Treaty, while Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern declared to the other participants that the referendum will be held in Ireland in the month of June. According to tradition, the official schedule of the Spring summit was devoted to economic, environmental and social policies. Heads of government and State expressed their mounting concern over the current economic slowdown. However, just like the calm wind in the eye of the storm, there was a general effort to respond with accuracy and with long-term strategies to the strong turbulences affecting world economy whereby the major player (the U.S.) is gradually sliding down towards recession worsened by the surge in oil price, in the weak dollar along with record-high gold prices. It appears that in different ways, and often at a dear price, the European Union is learning that its economic model – based on transparent, ecologically sound markets with a social vocation – cannot endure unless it finds an equalization with other fully-developed world regions. The path leading to this equalization, which would constitute and effective “world governance”, is extremely cumbersome, although it is crucial for the common good. In the forthcoming years it will cement the yearn for unity of European governments. This attitude is perceivable in the compromise reached during the same European Council on the ambitious Union for the Mediterranean project launched by French president Nicolas Sarkozy, meant to represent the prosecution of the Barcelona Process undertaken in 1995 with moderately successful outcomes to date. The quest for world equalization is the greatest task ever faced by an entire generation of politicians. To this regard, Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves, in his address delivered to the Euro-Parliament on March 11, guarded against the assumption that contemporary societies have no ideologies: “The emergence of an authoritarian form of capitalism which is presented as an alternative to democratic market economies, is probably the new ideological, moral and intellectual battle we are currently called to engage with”. Finally, as relates to religious fundamentalism, a topic briefly addressed by the Council following the diffusion of an anti-Islam documentary in The Netherlands, this is viewed as an ideological challenge to the European social model whose foundations are rooted in Christianity. On the wake of this imprint, “Ecclesia in Europe” represents one of the most significant contributions to the European unification process.