The bases of a new policy ” “” “

The 77th social week in France will be held in Paris from 15 to 17 November on the theme: “Violence. How to live with it?”. Michel Camdessus, president of the French “Social Weeks” has made the following reflections available to SirEurope. With the Convention on the future of Europe and the forthcoming enlargement of the Union to various countries, Europe is at the start of a new stage in its history. Called to place ourselves in this perspective, we must identify still more what is the root of our identity as European Christians. We are the reconciled children of the same family, the heirs of a history two thousand years old during which the gospel leaven has never ceased to shape our Europe, though without ever making it truly Christian. Indeed, we have long been struggling in vain. Our Churches have sometimes been divided by schism and have often been ignored. But now our countries, and also our Churches, are drawing closer to each other. We may affirm that it is above all the paths of reconciliation that have characterized the political and social evolution of our continent in recent decades. We refer, of course, to the Franco-German reconciliation, the German-Polish reconciliation, that between the two Spains and all the processes of reconciliation that are still at work, from the Balkans to Eastern Europe, from Ireland to the Basque Provinces… It is the endeavours of those who have preceded us, their acts of faith and hope, that have enabled Europe to be what it is today. But reconciliation is not something acquired at the drop of a hat, through an accord, a declaration or a treaty… It’s a continuous process that requires perseverance and vigilance, and above all a deep consciousness of the fact that between Europeans, between brothers in humanity, we shall never be able to cease asking each other for pardon, knowing full well that it is pardon that fosters real peace. It is on this same political efficacy of pardon and love that we want European foreign policy to be based. For we don’t build the European Union only to guarantee our peace, organize democracy, or support economic and social development. The logic of reconciliation, of solidarity, of the elimination of a diplomatic practice based on “sacred egoism” and the appetite for power, can and must be practised at the world level. A strong European diplomacy must be inspired by these principles and help open a new era and a new age of international relations. In an address to the European Parliament in October 1988, John Paul II clearly distinguished all the challenges that Europe must face today in a perspective of reconciliation: “First, – he said – the reconciliation of man with the creation, ensuring the safeguard of nature, its fauna and flora, its air and its rivers, its precarious equilibrium, its limited resources and its beauty that is a hymn of praise to God; then, the reconciliation of man with his fellowmen, accepting each other as Europeans with different traditions and currents of thought, welcoming foreigners and refugees and opening themselves up to the spiritual riches of the peoples of other continents; lastly, the reconciliation of man with himself…”.