Strasbourg, 17/12/2009 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 17 December, the European Parliament decided to postpone the vote on a resolution referring to defence of the principle of subsidiarity and calling for the freedom of member states to be acknowledged when it comes to wearing religious symbols in public places. Several resolutions had been presented before the S&D, ALDE, Greens-EFA and GUE-NGL Groups withdrew theirs. This left a text presented by the EPP Group and another by the European of Freedom and Democracy Group, at the origin of the initiative that follows a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights condemning the presence of crucifixes in Italian schools.
Before the session, the president of the S&D Group, Martin Schulz, took the floor to call for the vote to be deferred until the next plenary session and to thus verify the admissibility of a resolution, on which many MEPs have doubts about its usefulness and on which some denounce the lack of any mention to the principle of separation between Church and State. According to Mr Schulz, the debate underway in Italy is Italian and not European, and it does not seem necessary to recall the principle of subsidiarity in this context. The report was approved by a majority of the House (283 for, 259 against and 27 abstentions). (A.B./transl.jl)