Brussels, 12/07/2012 (Agence Europe) - On 12 July, the Commission, Parliament, European Council, and leaders of religious communities discussed solidarity between the generations and demographic challenges across Europe in the context of the current crisis (“Intergenerational Solidarity: Setting the Parameters for Tomorrow's Society in Europe”). Speakers also highlighted other important demographic challenges for society, like tackling unemployment, the ageing population, and the difficulty of finding a work/life balance. During the meeting, participants agreed on the need to raise awareness of the huge societal challenges, such as strengthening solidarity between young and old, and fighting discrimination, and to effectively contribute to the Commission's overall growth strategy for Europe, by striving for better education, tackling poverty, and bringing about a fairer society. This occasion provided an ideal opportunity of European leaders to justify the particularly painful austerity measures currently affecting citizens in certain southern European countries. In a nutshell, tightening belts now in an effort to guarantee the European social model would help avoid chaos for future generations.
Talking to the press, Commission President José Manuel Barroso underlined the European Union's difficulty in but also its obligation of having to find a fair balance between solidarity and responsibility in member states. “Ultimately, we will only be able to come well out of this crisis and lay the foundations of a prosperous future, if we keep solidarity between people and generations at the heart of our actions. This is the glue that keeps our communities together”. He appealed to religious leaders to begin a public debate and demonstrate the specific contribution that churches and religious communities could bring in explaining the need for solidarity. European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said that Europe was in no position to lose an entire generation or neglect the elderly by using the pretext that they are no longer productive. Quoting an African proverb, he declared: “the productivity of wisdom and knowledge is for sure not as measurable as the productivity of manufacturing consumer goods”, but “when an older man dies, a library disappears”. According to Van Rompuy, religious communities are the natural vehicle for bringing people together at a local level and, therefore, play an important role in improving understanding and mutual learning. Representing the European Parliament, its vice president, Laszlo Surjan pointed out that “Intergenerational solidarity is an obligation in Judeo-Christian heritage and in other religions as well”. He declared that “today's debt can be seen as tomorrow's potential taxes” and debt reduction was therefore crucial because “debt is not only a burden for new generations; it is multiplied by an interest rate”. In reply to a question from a journalist who asked him why the Greek Orthodox church was not participating in the budgetary austerity efforts imposed on citizens of his country, H.E. Metropolitan Athanasios of Achaia, the Greek Orthodox Church's permanent representative to the European Union, justified it by saying that the church was not an appropriate place for carrying out financial transactions and it had already in the past made over a lot of the church's property to the government. He said that the church would continue to help people by providing support to the local population, a fact that often went unreported.
This meeting is the eighth in a cycle of meetings that began in 2005 on the initiative of José Manuel Barroso, in line with the Article in the Lisbon Treaty recommending that the European institutions develop open, transparent and regular dialogue with the churches, religious communities and philosophical and non-confessional organisations. Barroso said that “today's meeting, this dialogue (between religious communities) would not be able to take place in many other places in the world. I am proud that in the European Union we can have dialogue and share our reflections”. (IL/transl.fl)