Finally, there is a pan-European debate - but it may not help the EU
AMONG the roots of British wariness of the European Union, according to the late Hugo Young, was suspicion that it was all a “Catholic conspiracy, orchestrated from the Vatican”. That prejudice, the writer maintained, was held by many prominent Britons, including Margaret Thatcher.
It is true that many of the moving spirits of post-war European integration - Konrad Adenauer, Jacques Delors, Alcide de Gasperi and Robert Schuman - were devout Catholics. Their faith gave them a strong sense of the cultural and religious ties between Europeans that transcend national boundaries. The European flag of 12 yellow stars on a blue background also owes something to Catholicism. Arsene Heitz, who designed it in 1955, recently told Lourdes magazine that his inspiration had been the reference in the Book of Revelation, the New Testament's final section, to “a woman clothed with the sun...and a crown of twelve stars on her head.”
But Catholicism and the European ideal are in danger of undergoing a messy divorce. The immediate crisis has been caused by opposition in the European Parliament to the nomination of Rocco Buttiglione, an Italian politician and devout Catholic, as European Commissioner for justice and home affairs. At his confirmation hearings, Mr Buttiglione said he regarded hom*osexuality as a sin. He drew a clear distinction between a sin and a crime, and said that he would have no problems enforcing Europe's Charter of Fundamental Rights. But his remarks, combined with other allegedly disparaging comments on single mothers and working women, sparked outrage from some parliamentarians; such a man should not hold the justice portfolio, they said, in an EU that calls itself a “union of values”.
The Buttiglione backlash has sparked a counter-backlash from top clerics. Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Vatican's Council for Justice, complained of an anti-Catholic “inquisition” (a rather unlikely turn of phrase, perhaps, for a Roman prelate) across Europe. John Wyles, a Brussels-based commentator, complained in European Voice that the European Parliament was raising fears that it was “furtively seeking to introduce a modern equivalent of the 1673 Test Act in Britain that barred Catholics from public life.” In an attempt to calm tempers, the commission's president-elect, José Barroso, declared that “a holy war is the last thing Europe needs”.
No such conflict is imminent. But the Buttiglione imbroglio was not a pure accident. Rather it was an expression of the tension between secular and religious views of “European values” that has been building for some time. During the two-year-long effort to write a constitution for the EU, one of the most fraught issues was whether to insert a reference to Europe's Christian roots into the statement of European values that serves as the constitution's preamble. Despite the Vatican's strenuous lobbying, Christianity did not make it into the final version of the constitution agreed to last June. Then there are the social issues. Mr Buttiglione's comments on hom*osexuality also came at a sensitive moment, with arguments raging in many parts of Europe over gay marriage. Spain's Socialist government has announced plans to legalise such unions - and met fierce clerical opposition. This week ABC, a conservative Spanish paper, said that the church felt “under attack” from the “militant secularism” practised by the new government.
There is certainly a feeling that social tides in Europe are moving against the conservative values championed by Pope John Paul II - and by Mr Buttiglione, the pope's friend and biographer. Polls in Spain show 60% support for the gay-marriage proposal. Europe as a whole is a secular place, compared with America. Europe's landscape, architecture, customs and place-names may be steeped in Christian history, but few Europeans go to church. In a Global Attitudes survey carried out by Pew, an opinion-research company, in 2002, as many as 59% of Americans said that religion was “very important” to them. Just 27% of Italians, 21% of Germans and 11% of French citizens said the same. Over abortion, the transatlantic gap is wide and widening. In America, the political initiative lies with those who want tighter curbs; in most parts of Europe the opposite is true.
A war of ideas
While some supporters of “ever closer union” in Europe worry about losing the support of the Catholic church, others welcome the Buttiglione battle. They say that it is high time that some real politics was introduced into the European Union. Only by arguing about values, rather than economics - so the theory goes - can EU politicians engage ordinary citizens, and convince them that the Union does more than regulate the curvature of bananas. The federalists hope the battle of Buttiglione will mark the coming-of-age of the European Parliament. The parliament, as they see it, did what parliaments are meant to do - hold the executive to account. Nor did the European Parliament divide along national lines. Rather, the division was ideological, with conservatives backing Buttiglione and the commission, and socialists, greens and most liberals coming out against. This looks like real pan-European politics, rather than simply another forum for international horse-trading. As federalists see it, elected politicians have asserted themselves against the bureaucrats; European democracy has begun, not before time, to shove aside elitist technocracy.
Maybe so. But for the Union, there are risks as well as opportunities in this week's angry debates. One reason for the success of European integration over the last 60 years is the fact that it never aroused much emotion among ordinary folk. That may no longer apply. Perhaps the European Parliament has gained new admirers this week. But by rocking the boat, and upsetting one of the traditional backers of European integration, the Catholic church, it has forfeited the benefits of quiet obscurity.
Commentary feature which says that the row over Rocco Buttiglione has highlighted a growing debate in Europe over 'values' and the tension that exists between those who espouse religious against those who espouse secular values. The article says that this debate is at least a subject which arouses real feelings and differing opinions - a genuine pan-European debate, which does not divide along national lines, but it has its dangers as it brings the EU to the fore even more and on an issue which divides people.
