Without popular impact. I do not at all believe that the Berlin Declaration will have an impact on the people. The admirable intention of having a brief and readable text that is also acceptable to all member states has led to essential concepts and words being masked or concealed. The term “enlargements” disappears from the future objectives because some governments believe future accessions must be subject to internal consolidation (hence to institutional reform), while others believe further accessions should remain free of conditions, including for Turkey. The concept therefore becomes the opening of the EU, in parallel to and on the same level as the determination to deepen it. How can citizens be expected to get excited about such subtleties? Let us take another example: should single currency be counted among the EU's successes if some countries are not part of it? The compromise reached in the text consists of mentioning the euro and the internal market in one and the same phrase, bringing together the achievement so dear to continental countries and the achievement which, for the British, is the EU's “raison d'être” (on condition that this market is open to the world as a whole).
I could go on to cite other examples. The main objectives of the next few years (the fate of the constitutional treaty, renegotiation of EU spending, the definition of common policies) are encompassed in a general phrase about establishing the EU on a common renewed base by the European elections of 2009. This is so vague that the element which counts, i.e. the deadline, goes unnoticed by the uninitiated - and orally, in Berlin itself, the heads of government have already expressed their differences over this deadline (see following page).
The overall result lacks lustre and inspiration, with its catalogue of words that are indeed inevitable but have been harped on about for so long that they go unnoticed by readers: peace, freedom, democracy, tolerance, security, justice, prosperity, solidarity. All this might one day be useful - for going down in history. But, for the moment, citizens ignore the Declaration or pass over it distractedly, like a list of stale banalities.
Catholic evolution? Other texts diffused on the occasion of the 50th anniversary seem to me of more significance. One of these is, for example, the report on the Ethical Dimension of the European Union, presented in Rome by COMECE, the Commission of the Bishops' Conference of the European Community. It is not a text by the bishops but a report that they had commissioned from a Committee of Wisemen composed, notably, by Michel Camdessus, Pat Cox, Franz Fischler, Karl Lamers, Mario Monti, Marcelino Oreja, Jacques Santer and Peter Sutherland, all eminent figures who, for some reason or other, have marked or still mark the history of Europe. The rapporteurs who drafted the report are Philipped de Schoutheete (whose every text on Europe is instructive given his knowledge of the subject, his contribution of new ideas and his clarity), and Stephen Wall.
Instead of being a pastoral text from bishops, we have a text to bishops, which indicates the ethical significance of European integration, without entering into religious aspects. This difference is slight but important. Let us give two examples: a) The report neglects the question (to which the Pope and a number of member states attribute such importance) of an explicit mention to Europe's Christian roots in the European Treaties; b) it avoids moral issues linked to Catholic doctrine. Thus it is that problems of sexuality, abortion and euthanasia are not even mentioned. These are important issues as they determine individual behaviour and influence national legislation but “have nothing to do with European matters” (as one of the above-mentioned personalities stressed).
Other values covered by the report are peace and freedom, closing the gap between peoples, tolerance, solidarity (within the EU and with the rest of the world). The peoples' renewed commitment to the European undertaking will only be obtained if such values rise up from their underlying position to inspire the behaviour of the EU. Paragraph 3 on the perception that people have of European activity (a visionary project that has become perfunctory) should be read and meditated on by all political decision-makers and officials. Indeed, for Adrianus van Luyn, Bishop of Rotterdam and President of COMECE, “these values come from religious tradition and especially the Christian tradition”. The main thing for Europe is that they be recognised and practised in themselves without obligations of a doctrinaire kind, in the spirit of the report. The Catholic Church has, of course, the right to state its views on roots, the family and abortion but the ethical dimension of Europe does not depend upon it.
(F.R.)