God and the EU

Faith in the European Project

Jonathan Chaplin, Gary Wilton, Jonathan Chaplin, Gary Wilton

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781138908635
• eBook ISBN: 9781317439202
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The current political, economic and financial crises facing the EU reveal a deeper cultural, indeed spiritual, malaise – a crisis in 'the soul of Europe'. Many observers are concluding that the 'soul of Europe' cannot be restored to health without a new appreciation of the contribution of religion to its past and future, and especially that of its hugely important but widely neglected Christian heritage, which is alive today even amidst advancing European secularization.

This book offers a fresh, constructive and critical understanding of Christian contributions to the origin and development of the EU from a variety of theological and national perspectives. It explains the Christian origins of the EU, documents the various ways in which it has been both affirmed and critiqued from diverse theological perspectives, offers expert, theologically-informed assessments of four illustrative policy areas of the EU (trade, finance, environment, science), and also reports on the place of religion in the EU, including how religious freedom is framed and how contemporary religious (including Muslim) actors relate to EU institutions and vice versa.

The book fills a major gap in the current debate about the future of the European project and will be of interest to students and scholars of religion, politics and European studies.

Part 1

The EU

Christian inspirations, past and present

1 Christianity at the founding

The legacy of Robert Schuman

Gary Wilton

Introduction

This chapter offers a reading of the Schuman Declaration informed by the Christian history of Europe. After outlining the historical context of the Declaration, the chapter identifies six of its central themes, illustrates how, contrary to much public perception, these themes continue to animate the contemporary European Union (EU), and commends their relevance for today, both for the EU and the churches.

The European quarter of twenty-first century Brussels is a gleaming pantheon of glass and steel. Yet positioned in front of the Berlaymont Building, the home of the European Commission, is a very simple hewn stone. It is a memorial to Robert Schuman – ‘The Father of a United Europe’. Today within the European institutions the name of Robert Schuman has a saint-like quality. On 9th May 1950 at the Quai d’Orsay, Paris, Robert Schuman, the then French Foreign Minister, made the modest public statement that is now recognised as the moment the European Union was born. A number of journalists were present; but there were no photographers, radio microphones, or television cameras to record proceedings. Yet the Schuman ‘Declaration’ (Schuman, 1950a)¹ changed the history of the continent.

The post-1945 generation of statesmen and politicians dreamed of creating a Europe free from war. Drawing on the work of Jean Monnet and working in collaboration with West Germany, Schuman, a deeply committed Roman Catholic, anticipated a pan-national community that would embed peace in Europe. Central to his proposal was the placing of the primary means of waging war – coal and steel – under a common High Authority thereby making war “materially impossible” (Schuman, 1950a). Although surprisingly brief, the Schuman Declaration thus had at its heart a radical economic proposal as the means of achieving and sustaining peace. It was, for him, the political expression of the Christian values of forgiveness and reconciliation and the precursor to permanent peace. The succeeding 60 years of economic solidarity have indeed contributed not only to peace and reconciliation between historic adversaries but also to unprecedented prosperity and to the creation of the world’s only multi-national democracy involving 28 member states with a population of 500 million people (European Union, 2015a). At the same time the High Authority has been transformed into today’s European Commission, with competencies far beyond those articulated in the Declaration.

Along with that of De Gasperi, Monnet, and Adenauer, Schuman’s Christian faith was the inspiration for a life dedicated to the rebuilding of Europe. Schuman and his peers worked with a profound sense that it was their vocation to restore and re-unite Europe to peace and prosperity. Before attending the Paris conference of 1951 they retreated for meditation and prayer at a Benedictine monastery on the Rhine. As Christian Democrats they shared a common foundation that would underpin the nascent European Community. Although Schuman’s initial focus was on coal and steel his underlying concern was to embed democracy in Europe as a bulwark against war and as the authentic expression of Christian political economy. For Schuman, democracy owed its existence to Christianity’s commitment to human dignity, freedom, and love (Fountain, 2010: 41). This chapter delineates the key themes of the founding Declaration, and offers analyses of how they have shaped a controversial and increasingly complex institution and how they continue to inform Christian participation in the EU.

Robert Schuman (1886–1963): Christian statesman and father of Europe

Robert Schuman was born in 1886 in Clausen, Luxembourg.² His father had been born a Frenchman before being given German nationality after the 1871 annexation of Alsace-Lorraine into Germany. As a student he crossed and re-crossed the French-German border to study law, history, economics, politics, theology, classics, and philosophy at the universities of Berlin, Munich, Bonn, and Strasbourg. From the outset Schuman took his Christian faith most seriously. In 1909 he participated in a pilgrimage to Rome. In 1912 he was joint leader of a German delegation to an International ‘Peace through Law’ congress at Leuven, Belgium, and in 1913 he attended a Paschal Retreat at Maria Laach with Heinrich Platz, a Catholic pacifist, and Heinrich Bruening, a future German Chancellor.

In 1919, aged 33, Schuman was elected to the French Chamber of Deputies. During the 1920s he led the development of a new legal code which reconciled earlier French and pre-war German legislation for Alsace with mainstream French law. For much of the interwar period he was associated with the Christian peace movement (Fountain, 2010: 31). During the Second World War Schuman was arrested by the Nazis before escaping to work for the resistance. Re-elected to public office in France in 1946 he variously served as Finance Minister, Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister. In 1947 he welcomed Churchill to Metz for his first ‘European’ speech and was a signatory of the Marshall Plan. In 1948 he was co-author and signatory of the North Atlantic Treaty and a Statute signatory for the Council of Europe. In a speech in 1949 he stated that the Council of Europe laid “the foundations for spiritual and political co-operation from which the European spirit will be born and the principle of a vast and long-lasting supranational union that has neither the objective nor the consequence of weakening our connection to the nation” (Schuman, 1949). In 1958 Schuman was unanimously elected President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the European Assemblies and acclaimed as the ‘Father of Europe’.

Schuman wrote widely about the European project. His papers are deposited at the Departmental Archive of the Moselle. In addition, both the European Commission Library and the Robert Schuman Foundation hold extensive material about him. Mayne describes Schuman as “monkish, bookish, almost saintly” (1996: 24). He was a biblical scholar, an expert on medieval philosophy, and a Knight of the Order of Pope Pius IX. Mayne observes that “his faith sustained him”, that he was deeply meditative and that he “lived simply like a priest” (Mayne, 1996: 24). It is surprising that educational materials produced by the European Commission make no reference to Schuman’s Christian convictions.

The content and continuing significance of the Schuman Declaration

Robert Schuman issued the Declaration at a time of considerable economic and political instability, the Europe of 1950 still economically, socially, and politically scarred by the Second World War. The breakdown of relationships with Soviet Russia raised the possibility of a third world war but nuclear weapons made such a prospect too terrible to contemplate.

Schuman and his colleagues perceived that traditional approaches to economic and political reconstruction were as much a part of the problem as they were of the solution. The way forward had to be communal, international, and possibly federal. Long-standing economic competitors and military foes would need to cede something of their national independence to make a common cause and to build a common future. The Schuman Declaration can be read legitimately as an outline sketch of one such communal way forward – one consciously responding to the particular challenges of the post-Second World War period but underpinned by centuries of Christian public theology, even if the theological underpinnings of its main themes remained assumed and unstated. In what follows I consider six of these themes to illustrate how Schuman’s embryonic vision shaped the early development of the European Union and to point to its continuing validity.

World Peace³

World Peace cannot be safeguarded without the making of creative efforts proportionate to the dangers which threaten it. The contribution which an organized and living Europe can bring to civilisation is indispensable to the maintenance of peaceful relations.

The solidarity in production thus established will make it plain that any war between France and Germany becomes not merely unthinkable but materially impossible.

… [T]his proposal will lead to the realization of the first concrete foundation of a European federation indispensable to the preservation of peace.

The opening sentences of the Schuman Declaration remind us that peace was its overriding aim. For Schuman, peace and reconciliation were foundational to the rebuilding of Europe. Peace was the first and the last stage in a virtuous circle of nation states coming together, sharing power, creating community, supporting one another, fostering prosperity, and contributing to the wider peace. But the particular genius of Schuman’s peace-making proposal was to move away from military solutions to the shared control of economic resources. The removal of the means of making war from France and Germany would make peace not only achievable but sustainable. Whilst NATO inherited the military responsibility for Western European security, the embryonic European Community focused first on coal and steel and subsequently on wider economic, social, and political cooperation as the key means of sustaining peace. The ultimate success of Schuman’s approach was only seen much later in the eventual integration of countries from the former Soviet bloc into the EU.⁴ Each stage of the enlargement of the European Community extended peace across the continent, making pan-European war increasingly unlikely. This justification for enlargement, however, is not fully owned by contemporary EU citizens. The majority are generally indifferent to enlargement while increasingly troubled by the resulting free movement of labour. This is widely perceived to contribute to competition for scarce jobs and public resources and to fuel various forms of cultural dislocation. Yet the case for further enlargement to consolidate and extend European peace remains compelling – not least in view of the widening threat of terrorism, now striking at the heart of European capitals, and Russian expansionism, already witnessed in Georgia, Crimea, and eastern Ukraine.

The case for the EU as a major contributor to peace beyond its borders is just as compelling. Since 2003, the EU has been involved in conflict prevention and post-conflict reconstruction across the globe, most notably in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. ‘Operation Artemis’, the EU’s first rapid military deployment in support of a UN mission in Africa, specifically answered a request for intervention from the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan. The operation was a joint EU-UN effort, with 12 member states contributing troops, and, although the EU maintained control of the operation, its actions clearly allowed the UN to strengthen its own mandate. Alexandra Novosseloff observed:

The EU and the UN worked in close cooperation throughout the planning and deployment phases of Artemis: the deployment of the UN troop reinforcements benefited from EU logistical support, joint planning of the transition period, co-localisation of MONUC and Artemis field headquarters, implementation of coordination mechanisms such as regular meetings and liaison officers and visit of the Artemis Force Commander in New York.

(2012: 12)

In 2007 the Commission launched its Instrument for Stability to strengthen work in the areas of conflict prevention, crisis management, and peace building. Projects include mediation, confidence building, interim administrations, developing the rule of law, transitional justice, and the role of natural resources in conflict. Under its Peace-Building Partnerships the Commission seeks to develop civilian expertise for peace-building activities. Such international activities are, of course, far beyond even Schuman’s prophetic imagination. The EU has gained global respect for its ‘soft’ activities. In 2012 the EU was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its contribution to peace. The award was met with both joy and derision. Those who responded with joy readily acknowledged Schuman’s legacy, while those who responded with derision rightly pointed out the lack of peace in Cyprus and the EU’s impotence in the face of calamitous civil war in Syria.

Within the Union, the churches have energetically contributed to the ‘soft’ activities that embed peace. The Commission of Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community (COMECE) and the Conference of European Churches (CEC) have worked extensively across the continent to strengthen relationships among churches and across political divides. The International Centre for Reconciliation at Coventry Cathedral is a model of church-based reconciliation ministry, while for a twenty-first century Europe where the integration of minority Muslim communities is a major concern, the work of the St. Ethelburga’s Centre for Peace and Reconciliation in London is a model for inter-faith peace initiatives. EU policy-makers might do well to recognise the potential of faith-based organisations to contribute expertise or resources for peace making at diplomatic and even military levels (Coward and Smith, 2004; Johnston, 2003; Thistlethwaite, 2011).

Unity in Europe

In taking upon herself for more than 20 years the role of champion of a united Europe, France …

Europe will not be made all at once, or according to a single plan.

The coming together of the nations of Europe requires the elimination of the age-old opposition of France and Germany. Any action must in the first place concern these two countries.

… a first step in the federation of Europe

The Declaration asserts that the nations and people of Europe should be ‘united’. But beyond the specific proposal for coal and steel, Schuman did not delineate what a united Europe might look like, using the word ‘federal’ without giving it substance. Nonetheless he recognised that the ancient feuding between France and Germany needed to be replaced by a genuine friendship before peace could be secured. The process of European (re)-unification would be evolutionary and voluntary. From the beginning, the project was facilitated by a deliberate vagueness that enabled member states to advance their own interests while finding common cause with others. Not surprisingly in every decade of its history the community has been beset by questions of identity, purpose, and destination.

For much of the second half of the twentieth century Europe was more complexly divided than is popularly recognised. The division of the Soviet-controlled East from the West until 1989 is easily remembered. However, the authoritarian regimes of Southern Europe, Greece, Portugal and Spain also constituted a distinctive bloc, while yet another group – Austria, Finland, Ireland, Sweden, and Switzerland – had declared themselves avowedly neutral. Prior to 1973 the UK stood alone and looked primarily to its transatlantic and Commonwealth relationships. The non-celebration of the fortieth anniversary of the UK’s accession to the common market was a clear sign that the UK’s unease with ‘Europe’ remains undiminished. It is easy to forget that the current map of the EU is less than 10 years old. Whilst not all European countries are members of the EU, the creation of a Union of 28 member states is remarkable. Despite a host of complex internal divisions, Europe enjoys a degree of unity of which Schuman and his peers could only dream.

Enlargement of the Union has also provoked concern for ‘unity’ with non-members of the community. This is particularly apparent in its post-2004 European Neighbourhood Policy designed to “achieve the closest possible political association and the greatest possible degree of economic integration” (European External Action Service, 2015a) with neighbouring states. The Union offers a ‘privileged relationship’ with neighbouring states on the basis of a mutual commitment to democracy and human rights, rule of law, good governance, market economy prin...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgments
• List of contributors
• Preface by Rowan Williams
• Introduction
• Part 1: The EU: Christian inspirations, past and present
• Part 2: Religion and the policies of the EU
• Index