The document on common European values
“How can the citizens of the EU be brought closer to its institutions? How can political activity be organized in an extended Union? How can the EU be turned into a factor of stability in the globalized world?”. To these questions, which go to the heart of the process of integration, COMECE tries to furnish some answers, in a document on “common values, living source of the European project”. SHARED PRINCIPLES, CITIZENS AS PROTAGONISTS. The document is the outcome of a long process of analysis and debate between the bishops of the episcopal Commission of the European Community and a group of “wise men” specially created in view of the celebrations to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the European Economic Community, whose founding Treaty was signed in Rome on 25 March 1957. In fact, the document, approved during the COMECE plenary assembly held in Brussels last week, “should be understood – explained COMECE President, Bishop ADRIANUS VAN LUYN – as a contribution to the preparation of the Berlin Declaration” that is expected to emerge from the extraordinary summit of EU heads of state and of government due to be held on 25 March 2007. Two “key” affirmations open the document: “The European Union must be built on a solid community of values”; and “it is indispensable for all EU citizens to assume responsibility for the European project”. PEACE, PROSPERITY AND SOLIDARITY. This Europe, based on shared principles and the active participation of citizens, was born from the ruins of the Second World War. “For many of its founders – declare the bishops – the European project incontestably bears a Christian stamp”. On this basis, they have committed themselves to the European project, “with the ambition of bringing peace to the continent, overcoming the division of Europe and promoting the prosperity of its people”. Held tenaciously and “profoundly rooted in a series of common values centred on respect for human dignity”, this commitment has been the basis on which they have supported “respect for human rights, the rule of law, solidarity, subsidiarity and democracy”. These values, point out the bishops, “correspond to Catholic social doctrine”. Now, with the evolution of the process of integration, these foundations need to be updated “in the context of the new challenges”. AT THE SERVICE OF HUMAN LIFE. How – asks COMECE – “can social justice and economic growth be promoted in the age of globalization”? How can dignified conditions of life and job security be preserved in a period of growing unemployment and impoverishment”? How can the family be reinforced in a period of far-reaching social and demographic transformations? Effective responses, ethically founded, are also required in response to international conflicts, mass migrations, the threats posed by terrorism and climate change. Once again, the bishops indicate the need to give concrete responses on the basis of common values and ambitions. That’s why “the Berlin Declaration ought to reaffirm that the European project is at the service of the human being, of the protection of life and of its integral development”. FOUNDATIONS OF CITIZENSHIP. “The European project has an ethical foundation, which precedes the political union”. Another key passage of the bishops’ document tackles the historical origins of the EU and reflects on the “Christian and humanistic heritage of our continent”. So the bishops hope that the Berlin Declaration will “not only comprise a list of the values and ambitions of the EU, but will also “reflect on the religious and humanistic motivation of citizenship” of the Community, “thus taking into account the transcendental destiny of the human person”. A VOCATION TO SOLIDARITY. According to COMECE, drawing on the legacy of fifty years of Community history and looking to the future of integration, “EU leaders and citizens” ought also to consider some “serious threats” to the project of the “common home”, and especially the resurgent forms of nationalism and actions against peace. “The conflicts in our continent and in our neighbouring countries – says the document – show that a situation of peace” may rapidly alter. That’s why “peace, its safeguard and its promotion, must be considered a permanent ambition”. But peace, in Europe as in the world, is coupled by the bishops with “world development”, thus recalling Europe’s vocation to solidarity. The sum of problems tackled by the final document of the COMECE autumn assembly will also be addressed by a major international conference, at which COMECE will re-launch its “European agenda”. The conference will be held in Rome from 23 to 25 March 2007, concurrently with the summit in Berlin.
