More than an enlargement” “

When ten other countries join it on 1st May 2004, the European Union will grow not only in terms of geographical extent, population and economic power, but will also integrate new cultures, languages and traditions, such as those of the Slav and Magyar peoples and those of the Mediterranean islands. The result will be more one of “europeanization” than an “enlargement” of the European Union. This was the point of departure of the fifth summer university course held by COMECE at Leányfaly (Hungary) from 13 to 17 September. The course was attended by 32 young people from 15 Catholic European episcopal conferences. They studied the question whether, in the light of the growing diversity of Europe, we can really speak of a common heritage, common values and a common identity and, if so, what role is played by religion – in particular Christianity – in this process. The assistant director of the American Academy in Berlin, Paul Stoop, described the process through which a sense of common identity was forged in the countries of Western Europe during the Cold War, against a background of totalitarian oppression in Eastern Europe and ever closer relations with the USA in the West. “In this period, countries characterised by various historical and cultural traditions formed common cause on the basis of the shared values of democracy and the free market. The apparent realignment that took place during the Iraqi conflict will not be sufficiently strong to dissolve this community of shared interests and values”, he concluded. The vice-president of the main opposition party in Hungary (Fidesz), József Szájer, offered a Hungarian perspective on the constitutional process currently underway in the EU. According to Szájer, “there is a risk of aggravating the ‘deficit’ of EU citizens in terms of their ability to identify with the institutions of the Union if not all member states have their own representative with voting rights in the European Commission, as would be the case if the present draft Constitution were to be adopted”. He also appealed for the “EU to make greater efforts to ensure the integration of national and ethnic minorities”. The capacity of religion to create bonds between people transcending geographical and cultural frontiers was stressed by Michael Haren of the Irish Manuscript Commission in Dublin. “The Hungarian people – he said, recounting the history of two Hungarian pilgrims to Ireland in the Middle Ages – constitutes in itself a symbol of the newly emerging European identity: descendents of Magyar emigrants from the mountains of the Urals, whose distant cousins came from north-eastern China, the Hungarians assimilated influences from all their neighbouring countries. Unique in linguistic and cultural terms, they nonetheless feel themselves to be part of Europe, to which they are bound by Christian faith”. The relation between nationality, European identity and Christian faith was analysed by Nicholas Boyle of the University of Cambridge. “The old idea of Christianity – he reported – was replaced by the idea of nation: God was replaced by ‘England’ as the main point of reference in defining the identity of most people. Today, the nation has in turn been replaced by extreme individualism, and both the Church and the European Union have a need to find new ways of identifying with the Europeans”. The course ended with a debate on “Let us open our heart”, the COMECE document on Catholics and the project for European integration (cf. Sir 32/03). John Coughlan Comece