A real pact” “

The family is the “bulwark for the construction of the united Europe”. But it is also “point of intersection of all EU policies”, and the “pillar of modern society” that still awaits “to be given its rightful value at the educational and social level”. Comece, Commission of the episcopates of the European Community, has revived these claims for the family in the framework of the process of continental integration: positions already expressed with conviction in the document “A family strategy for the European Union” published last spring on the eve of enlargement. GIVING RISE TO A REAL “FAMILY PACT”. In the course of a round table held by Comece in Brussels on Monday 29 November, Johannes Fenz, Austrian, president of FAFCE (Federation of Catholic Family Associations in Europe), called on the EU institutions “to define a real family pact” as the guiding criterion of common policies in the social, economic and cultural fields. “The family – accused Fenz – has been wholly excluded from the Lisbon Strategy”. CONCRETE CHOICES ON THE PART OF SPOUSES AND CHILDREN. “We need family policies – added Fenz –, although the competence in this field is that of the individual States. Yet, by the principle of subsidiarity it is possible to pursue the main goal: the support of the essential cell of society”. We therefore need to study the transformations that concern family relations, and “respond to the hopes and needs of couples, parents and children, in order to allocate resources as effectively as possible”. “For example, many young couples would like to have children, but to realise this dream they need an income, decent housing, and flexible hours of work. And, more generally, they need a system of laws aimed at protecting marriage, the education of children, and invalids and elderly people in need of assistance or treatment”. The same view is shared by Marie Panayotopoulos-Cassiotou, Greek MEP and expert on social issues. “Affections, hopes and resources, but also chronic problems, revolve around the family. We think of everything that still remains to be done to achieve the real equality between men and women, define working hours compatible with work in the home, and tackle the relations between parents and children”. The Greek MEP, however, denounced “the sometimes hostile attitude towards those who wish to speak of the struggle against abortion or euthanasia in the institutional seats of the EU”, adding: “We ought to promote the freedom of those spouses who wish to have a large family”. “CHRISTIANS SHOULD REMAIN UNITED AND BE VIGILANT”. In fact the Union does not have direct responsibilities for the family (a “planet” that remains firmly in the hands of the member countries), but the EU does have the task of safeguarding rights and may act on a huge range of questions that impact on the life of individuals, who in turn compose the nucleus of society: employment, the economy, immigration, education, healthcare, consumer protection, the defence of the environment. “What cannot enter by the door – it was remarked during the round table – can enter at least by the window”. On the other hand, in an increasingly multicultural and multireligious Europe, “it is not easy to reach agreement on the concept of family itself and on the protection of life in every phase”: very delicate questions are appearing on the horizon that “urge the reflections of believers and appeal to the responsibility of politics”, such as de facto and homosexual unions, and the frontiers of research and bioethics. The negative signals that are being registered at the present time include the imminent closing down of the European Watchdog on Society, Demography and the Family, established with the EU; it is to be hoped that its role may at least be transferred to another EU organization. “The problems are complex and it’s true that the EU has no direct competence for the family – concluded Adrianus Van Luyn, bishop of Rotterdam and vice-president of Comece -: all the greater reason then to ask Christians for vigilance and unity of action in this field”.