Rediscovering the impetus

A passionate plea to rediscover the “spiritual impetus” of the European project and reject the continent’s current “moral and political decline” has been made by Jacques Delors, eighth President of the European Commission (1985-1995), who received an honorary doctorate from the Institut Catholique de Paris on 24 November. In his acceptance speech, Delors asked whether, “faced by all the difficulties by which the European adventure is beset”, its project “is not being overwhelmed by the radical changes we are now experiencing”.Educating in solidarity. The West, he observed, “is ever less the centre of the world, and this gives rise to fears and withdrawals that foment populism and a form – unfortunately widespread – of spreading nationalism”. To this is added unchecked individualism, “fuelled by the decline of religions, by the consumer society, by the power of the mass media and by the cult of the instantaneous”. It’s an individualism that “coincides with the age of the sovereign market and is the judge of everything”. According to Delors, “the spirit of competition – however necessary – pervades the whole of economic and social life, poisons the educational system and relegates to the oblivion of the past each collective project and bearer of meaning”, above all every “bearer of solidarity”. Citing the words of Cardinal André Vingt-Trois”, the French statesman declared that “education in solidarity is the prime peacemaker. Compulsion may be a necessary means to accompany the process of integration in society, but cannot in any way substitute it”. True to the best of itself. “There is a close relation between social reform and revival of the European project”, continued Delors. In our continent “a balance has always been struck between society and the individual, between collective solidarity and individual responsibility. In most of our countries this is translated into a positive dialectic between public authorities and the markets, between common rules and the exercise of individual liberties”. It’s a model “interrupted by the excesses of liberalism”, but its “foundations remain solid, inspired by Judeo-Christianity, by Greek thought and its contribution to democracy, and by Roman law; and later by Reformation, Enlightenment and Revolution”. According to Delors we need to avoid “both the individual’s excessive withdrawal into himself and the return to the monstrous nationalism” of the past. Delors therefore conjured up the Europe “true to what is best of itself” proposed by Vaclav Havel (last President of Czechoslovakia and first President of the Czech Republic, down to 2003, who died on 18 December). Havel declared: “The mission of Europe is no longer, and shall never be again, that of ruling the world, nor spreading by force its representation of happiness and good, nor inculcating its culture… The one mission it is called to fulfil is that of being true to itself in the best possible way, in other words being reborn and projecting in its life its finest spiritual traditions, and thus contributing to the creation of a new form of social intercourse at the world level”.Capable of impetus. “There have been periods – continued the French statesman – in which it was possible to speak of the European dream, according to the vision of Vaclav Havel. Do we perhaps need to recall the happy times in which countries that had only recently re-emerged from dictatorships joined the European Community and made the experience of a new democracy: Greece, Spain and Portugal? It is necessary to repeat that it was our fortune to accept into our fold peoples who had emerged from Communist and Bolshevik dictatorship?”. Delors went on to underline the influence “exerted by the words of John Paul II on this development”. He urged that Europe once again become “capable of impetus”. Europe needs, he said, to continue to “unite peoples, bring nations closer together, and develop their sense of belonging”. Otherwise the construction of Europe “won’t succeed; national selfishness will gain the upper hand, because our community will have failed to conquer that supplement of spirit and that rooting in the people without which every human adventure is doomed to failure”.The child Hope. “We Europeans – urged Delors – are only at the halfway stage. We have left the shores of the old Europe subverted by civil wars and at the risk of losing influence, in the attempt to land on the other shore, that of a powerful and generous Europe, exemplary in its methods of internal organization and inter-relation. And the world for its part has left the post-war shore to sail, in a chaotic way, to the landfall of the global village. Our ambition must be that of rejecting moral and political decline, and finding the right compass to direct our course, namely the real meaning of human activity. Without this spiritual impetus, nothing great or lasting shall be achieved”. In Delors’ view “the child Hope is still there, with its treasure of peace, mutual understanding and solidarity with mankind as a whole”. Hence the final question: “Shall we be sufficiently numerous and determined in future to embrace this Hope and make it bear fruit?”.