The Europe to come

“Fifty years after the Treaty of Rome, what values for Europe?” is the title of the European seminar promoted by the Commission of the episcopates of the European Union (Comece) and held at Clermont Ferrand (France) from 9 to 11 October. The seminar represented a preparatory stage towards the international conference due to be held in Rome, from 23 to 25 March 2007, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Treaty that laid the foundation of the European Community. Fifty experts from various European countries took part in the meeting. They were flanked by 250 secondary school pupils, who presented their thoughts on Europe. COMMON REGARD FOR THE INJURED MAN. “Each person who claims this legacy must keep it alive, for the present and for the future”, declared Archbishop HYPPOLITE SIMON of Clermont Ferrand, member of the Commission of the episcopates of the European Community (COMECE). “Since we are deeply conscious of being the heirs of a rich religious heritage – he continued – we must make it bear fruit, in as much as it does not only exist in the past but also determines our vision of the future and of the relations between human beings. We cannot, however, invoke this heritage without assuming its paradoxes. For example, we are called not to reserve our care just for those who belong to our people, but to devote it to everyone”. According to ALFRED GROSSER , professor of political science at the University of Paris, “in the construction of united Europe, the sum of the sacrifices has been less than the sum of the advantages” and “among the most important values of this experience was and will remain our common regard for the injured man”. “The will and the capacity for reconciliation, the respect for others – he added – are the road on which Europe walks, but does not run, because sensibility and commitments cannot be reinforced and spread in a hurry”. Moreover, recalled Grosser, “reducing diversities to a single identity would mean creating aggressiveness”. MIHALY KRANITZ , a theologian at the University of Budapest, confirmed this with his testimony on the Hungarian revolution of 1956. “The Soviet tanks – he commented – halted and injured, but did not quench, a people’s desire for freedom. Europe has been built on these experiences of students, factory workers, intellectuals and ordinary people”. EDUCATING IN DEMOCRACY. “Today the European project is regarded by most Finns as an economic solution and a form of security. The Finnish ecumenical council was recently unable to set up a work group for the European Union as happened in the 1980s and 1990s, due to lack of interest on the part of the Churches. The economic prosperity we all enjoy in Finland today does not enter into the existential discussions on values. The question, simply, is not considered important”, said JAN-PETER PAUL , bureaucrat of the European Commission and professor at the University of Helsinki, commenting on the lack of interest of his compatriots for the idea of Europe. A very different position was expressed by the Romanian historian VIOLETTA BARBU who, in describing the situation of her country, remarked: “Reduced to material and cultural poverty by the Soviet regime, Romania sees in EU enlargement to Eastern Europe a way not to export democracy, but to educate and form in democracy”. She also recalled that “Romania is present with its emigrants in many Western countries and not least for this reason one can realistically say that she is in Europe and enters into contact with its various cultures”. RECOUNTING EUROPE TO THE YOUNG. “In the Schuman Declaration, we find a reference to Europe’s historic responsibility for the development of the African continent. This is, in a particular way, a Portuguese responsibility. And this responsibility cannot be forgotten when Africa is still being sidelined from global development”, said PEDRO VAZ PATTO , magistrate and chairman of the Justice and Peace Commission of Portugal. He recalled Europe’s commitment to Africa, and, in referring to the reality of the continent today, added: “The European Community, at the time of Portugal’s membership, was seen as a club for the rich, and my country was about to become its poorest member”. But “we should not forget that the awareness of belonging to a real community is incompatible with the existence of great socio-economic disparities within it”. “The Polish perspective on Europe – commented in turn HENRYK WOZNIAKOWSKI , director of the ZNAC publishing house in Poland – is not restricted to its economic dimension, but is extended to its historical and cultural aspects. A country that participates in the construction of a united Europe develops a new identity of its own. But this does not detract from its national identity, indeed it enriches it”. According to the Italian historian BINO OLIVI , for twenty years spokesman of the European Commission and eyewitness of the first steps in the Community project, “since the end of the Second World War to the present day Europe has had an uphill journey and the first steps were taken, moved by a great hope. The European countries had opened deep wounds between the peoples, but there was a yearning to build a common future of peace, justice and development. Unfortunately the history of the European Community is little recounted to the young and this does not help them to regard the construction of European unity with realism or with confidence”. The young, stressed the historian, “must be made aware of the difficulties of Europe today, but they must not fall into the trap of euro-scepticism, often the result of poor information”. THE TWO LUNGS. “After Pius XI, who devoted a great deal of attention to making Catholics conscious of the consequences that the faith has also at the level of international relations, Pius XII, from 1945 on, strongly encouraged all initiatives in favour of the construction of a united Europe”, said the historian JEAN-DOMINIQUE DURAND of the University of Lyon in reviewing the historical links between papal teaching and the idea of Europe. “Pius XII, John XIII and Paul VI – added Durand – supported with determination the project of Christian Democrats for the creation of the European Community. With John Paul II, the Pope who came from the East and had no links with the history of the Christian-Democratic parties of the West, a wider vision of Europe came to prevail: a Europe that breathes with both its lungs, eastern and western. Today Benedict XVI appeals to Europe for a dialogue between faith and reason”. Referring, lastly, to the changes that have occurred in more recent times and that “have also modified the idea of Europe”, Durand stressed that “the Church, stripped of the mediation of the Christian-Democratic parties, finds herself faced by a new situation and one in which Catholics have increased responsibility”. A SUCCESSFUL METHOD. In the judgement of HANNS JURGEN KUSTERS , professor of political sciences and contemporary history at the University of Bonn, “the Treaties of Rome of 1957 re-propose today the success of a political method that revived European integration after the failure of the project for a common defence policy in 1954. The new strategy was able to instigate a process that involved various economic sectors and, at the same time, identified supranational institutions with growing credibility and responsibilities”. “With the consent of their respective parliaments – added Kusters, again referring to the Treaty of Rome – it was possible to wrest some powers from the national governments and transfer them, in various ways, to the European institutions”. In this perspective, according to the Frenchman PHILIPPE HERZOG , former MEP and chairman of “Confrontations sur l’Europe”, the future ought to move in two main directions: “the reinforcement of the culture of diversity and the consciousness that the profound transformations in the socio-economic field demand a new common political intelligence”. THE VIRTUES OF OPENNESS. Immigration, new and different forms of insecurity, the relation between public and private: just some of the questions that Europe will have to tackle with a more effective common policy, according to the findings of the work groups at the seminar. To these challenges is added “the dialectic between economic patriotism and shared development: the first as a weapon often brandished by the national authorities and the second as the still fragile response of civil society”. At the same time, the need was underlined to “halt the decline of consensus and revive on new cultural foundations the relation between citizens and institutions, also taking account of the fact that it is not only the leaders who are responsible for certain fragilities and shortcomings, because they are often the result of a widespread cultural crisis”. “Not less Europe, but more Europe to respond to people’s fears and questions, and the challenges of our time”. These were the thoughts expressed by MICHEL CAMDESSUS , President of the Semaines sociales de France, at the end of the seminar in Clermont Ferrand. “Europe needs courageous politicians who are able to decide, who do not await the results of opinion polls before assuming responsibility and who run risks for the realization of the common good”, added PHILIPPE SCHOUTHETTE , former representative of Belgium to the EU. The view is shared by NOËL TREANOR , general secretary of COMECE, who pointed out that “Christians, in the most challenging moments of European history, have made a contribution of hope and confidence with concrete and shared proposals and commitments”. Commemorating the Treaty of Rome, concluded Archbishop Hippolyte Simon, means “giving continuity to John Paul II’s idea that Europe means openness to a wider world. Today, Christians especially are called to exercise the virtues of openness which are not abstractions, but take the form of dialogue, solidarity, justice and peace”. The work of the seminar of Clermont Ferrand will be resumed in the plenary of COMECE due to be held in November, while many initiatives will be promoted at the local level with the support of COMECE. The final event will be held in Rome from 23 to 25 March 2007.