Politics: passion and reason” “” “

After having welcomed the 162 deputies of the 10 new member countries and the 10 newly nominated Commissioners to the Executive in Brussels, the European Parliament ended the work of the 1999-2004 legislature on Wednesday 5 May. The elections of 10-13 June, to be held simultaneously in the 25 member states of the EU, will renew the EP, which will hold its first plenary session thereafter at Strasbourg at the end of July. Over the last five years the assembly has concluded 403 procedures of co-decision and 86 conciliations, with a 250% increase of its legislative activity over the previous legislature. The role of the EP in the budgetary sphere has also been fundamental. The European Parliament, “citizens’ voice”. “The key message of this legislature – said the president of the EP, the Irish Pat Cox – is that Parliament is an authoritative political partner of the Council and of the Commission and has been confirmed as the voice of the 450 million European citizens”. Cox himself has tried hard during the last five years to familiarise citizens with the activities of the EP through lectures, conferences, and the mass media: “However – he added – there are no public relations or information campaigns that can substitute real politics founded on conviction, passion and reason”. The President of the Commission, the Italian Romano Prodi, intervened during the session to present the ten Commissioners nominated by the new “members” of the EU and to emphasise that “enlargement has been a fundamental stage in the process of integration, but now a Constitution needs to be given to this great Europe”. With regard to the EU’s constitutional treaty, Prodi remains favourable to an insertion of a reference to the Judaeo-Christian roots in the preamble of the text. But, for his part, Irish premier Bertie Ahern, current President of the European Council, has admitted in recent days that no full convergence of the member countries on the matter has been registered. A million signatures in favour of “Christian roots”. In this regard, during the Strasbourg session, a delegation of over one hundred associations and non-governmental organizations of the 25 member states delivered to the EU Presidency a carton containing the forms with over a million signatures of citizens appealing for the recall of the Christian heritage in the Constitution. “The project was born in my country in December 2002 – explains Marie-Claire Bonavia, from Malta -. We wanted to make the voice of citizens heard on the constitutional treaty and also had close at heart the need for the Christian heritage that has left its mark on the history of the continent to be recognized. We worked with small groups, trades unions, ecclesial movements and volunteer services”. Bonavia adds: “In the draft Constitution the power of legislative initiative is assigned to citizens. That’s just what we aimed to do in enlisting the support of these organizations that represent 50 million Europeans. We have involved countless people to ensure that the new Europe is more participative and does not ignore its origins”. The supporting organization include ACLI (Italy), Catholic Family Association (Poland), A.O. St. Georg (Austria), CISL (Italy), Fédération Familles-Medias (France), Forum Krest’anskych (Slovakia), ICPE Mission (present in Germany and other nations), Médecins pour le respect de la vie (France), Movimento per la Vita (Italy), and Pro life (Latvia). Identity of the continent, secularism of the institutions. “We immediately gave our support to the project – explains Luigi Bobba, national president of the Italian Christian Workers Associations – because so extensive a Union has a need to recognise its own roots. I think that enlargement is a great achievement, but that’s why it’s all the more necessary to know the history of Europe and discover its deepest identity”. Bobba also underlines the need to preserve the secularism of the common political institutions and adds: “I think it’s essential to insert a clear reference to the value of peace in the constitutional treaty”. Elizabeth Monfort, French MEP, says that the petition asks for an explicit reference to the Judaeo-Christian roots and not an “invocation to God” like that contained in some national constitutions, in particular that of Poland. Monfort points out that the mention of the Christian roots in the preamble “would in no way prejudice the partnership or membership of Turkey”. Lojze Peterle, from Slovenia, says he is “surprised” by the virulence of the ideological polemic on the question. “I come from a country with a communist past, and here at times it seems to me I am hearing the language of the past”, he remarks, referring to the positions firmly opposed to any mention of the Christian heritage in the Constitution. Gianni Borsa SIR correspondent in Brussels