ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE AT THE COMECE CONGRESS ‘VALUES & PERSPECTIVES FOR EUROPE’S FUTURE’
ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT MCALEESE AT THE COMMISSION OF THE BISHOPS’ CONFERENCES OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY CONGRESS
“The EU at 50: values and interests, continuity and change”
Excellencies,
My Lord Bishops,
Representatives of the churches,
Ladies and gentlemen,
This great city has known many historic days, many famous epochs but we gather in homage to one contemporary event, the signing fifty years ago of the Treaty of Rome and the start of a remarkable, some might even say miraculous, new era, not a Pax Romana but a Pax Europea, a journey into peace, prosperity and partnership for Europe and her liberated peoples.
I feel very honoured to be here to add Ireland’s perspective to these Golden Jubilee reflections on where we have come from and where we are going as citizens of Europe.
For a married couple or a cleric a Golden Jubilee is a time to look back at a long life with the bulk of its work accomplished. For the European Union it is a little bit different for this is no ageing parent but a passionate and talented youngster setting out in life, full of adventure, hope and possibilities, on a pilgrimage of sorts, inspired by the highest of ideals. A precocious youngster to be sure with a catalogue of achievements to its credit, a collegial partnership between bitter enemies who fought two atrocious World Wars, now grown to a membership of 27 states, many only recently liberated from once powerful communist totalitarianism, the single market, the euro, fifty years of peace, fifty years of peoples who were strangers to one another living and working together and forging a common future.
Fifty years ago as a war-weary Europe looked back in horror at this continent, horribly damaged in body, mind and soul, the brave voice of the Union’s founders spoke of a radical, new vision for a conscious shift away from conflict to consensus, from selfishness to sharing, from despair to hope. With the horror of genocide fresh in their minds, with overwhelming evidence from centuries of bitter experience, of the evil human beings are capable of in the exercise of bullying State power, along came the assertion that state sovereignty would be enhanced, not diminished, by exercising it collegially for the good of all Europe’s citizens and that peace and prosperity would flow from freedom of movement, freedom of goods and services, freedom of capital movements and free movement of people in a voluntary union freely entered into by member states.
The Treaty can be seen as a powerful, living testament to the resilience of a value system based on reconciliation and the dignity of the individual which continued to put out green shoots even in the face of brute evil which had mocked Europe’s Christian heritage and confounded the great commandment to love one another. At one level the Union not only re-introduced the language of civility and diplomacy to Europe’s dysfunctional politics, it re-introduced the concept of love, not as an emotion but as a verb, a doing word, a living discipline in which the everyday, institutionalised practice of partnership, co-operation would consolidate a humanly decent common European homeland made up of good neighbours.
In daring to reach towards a peaceful, co-operative future for Europe, the Treaty of Rome definitively reclaimed the dignity, the personal liberty and the human rights of the individual human being as the quintessential and unquenchable basis of civic society. In the teeth of aggressive philosophies which believed otherwise, from colonial empires to communist regimes, there stood men and women who saw with clarity that the answer to Europe’s woes was to gather up the life-affirming civic, human and spiritual values from deep within the European tradition and to foster them within a pragmatic, workaday environment. The door to that environment was opened by the Treaty of Rome with its focus on some of the everyday concerns of governments and peoples, trade and economic co-operation, on agriculture, the environment, research and development and monetary policy. To use a phrase from Seamus Heaney’s poem, ‘From the Canton of Expectation’ – ‘What looks the strongest has outlived its term / The future lies with what’s affirmed from under.’.
Schumann recognised as early as 1950 that ‘Europe shall not be made all at once, or according to one single, general plan. It will be formed by taking measures which work primarily to bring about real solidarity.’. How right he was! When an ambitious scheme for a political union was rejected by France in 1953 it would have been all too easy to walk away defeated by the scale of the undertaking. But the Union’s founders persevered not by wishing away realpolitik but by working through realpolitik with a dogged persistence that there had to be a way to transform vision into reality. It remains true today that we must work with the world as we find it and yet still work towards remaking it as we would like it to be.
And what a remaking there has been. Against the background of European history, conflict among EU Member States is today unthinkable. Our institutions and ethos represent a massive advance on the blinkered, political processes of a hundred years ago that ultimately led Europeans to the verge of mutual self-destruction. In our lifetimes, thanks to the power of the very idea of the European Union, France and Germany have set an example to the world by overcoming one of the most damaging rivalries in history. For Spain, Greece and Portugal, Europe was a factor in the ending of dictatorships as it was when the Berlin Wall came crashing down, the Iron Curtain fell to pieces and the cruel grip of Communism in Europe was prised open.
Today’s Union citizens are privileged to be part of the greatest, most democratic and egalitarian peace and partnership project ever undertaken by humanity. But just as each citizen is a beneficiary of the story so far, so each is a contributor to the story yet to be written. For in drawing these positive conclusions from the experience of the past 50 years, I do not mean to imply that European integration is some kind of model of perfection or that we have reached an ‘end of history’ type moment in today’s Europe. This is certainly not the case, for, amidst our well-warranted celebration of this important anniversary, there is considerable anxiety and debate about the future.
There are those who dislike the Union’s current condition and contest its future direction. Some insist that European integration has gone too far and others that it has not gone far enough. Some are worried about its capacity to cope with the member states already absorbed and some are anxious to keep on drawing new member states into this place of hope and relative harmony. These tensions and debates are probably normal signs of a healthy adolescence, as caution and curiosity hold each other in that tension which is the realpolitik of everyday life, within a system of communal governance which is still evolving and novel even for the longest serving members.
Each member state has its own unique story to tell of the history-altering consequences of membership, none more remarkable than the story of Ireland. Often we focus on the story of the Celtic Tiger economy and the transformation of Ireland from a poor into a prosperous country, a showcase for the potential of the Union. But there is another story that the Union is also entitled to take considerable credit for and that is the altered relationship between Ireland and Great Britain - two neighbouring but historically anything but neighbourly islands. We joined the Union together in 1973 at a time when the disputed territory of Northern Ireland was sliding into decades of political and sectarian violence. Yet, against that very testing and challenging backdrop, the two governments, Dublin and Westminster, working together as colleagues at the Union table, forged the exact problem-solving dynamic that the Union’s founders passionately believed dwelt inside the Union’s focus on consensus through dialogue.
Out of the new-found friendship between Ireland and Great Britain came the temperate, painstaking diplomacy and common focus which produced the Good Friday Agreement, a brilliant example of the new European politics of diversity managed by consensus and underpinned by structures which embed a culture of civilised discourse.
Ireland has of course benefited from Union membership in many other ways, some of which are measurable and some of which are not but are real nonetheless. Our self-confidence, our culture, our economy and the very face of our society have all been transformed by the voluntary reconnection of Ireland to its long-standing European roots. Our once poor, inward-looking nation has rapidly become prosperous and fully engaged both in European and world politics. Our once homogeneous population has rapidly become multicultural. Drawing on the long experience of the mass emigration of our own people and on our traditional Christian values of kindness, generosity and openness of spirit, and inspired by the Union’s vision of a comfortably diverse common European homeland, we have this fascinating chance to build a 21st century Ireland of which all citizens regardless of origin can be proud and feel part of. It was Ralph Stockman who reminded us that ‘The test of courage comes when we are in the minority. The test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority’.
The Union is itself in a constant process of being tested against aspiration and delivery and just as it has helped take Europe on an exciting journey these past fifty years it will, as Foreign Minister of Ireland, Mr. Dermot Ahern recently said, ‘need to devise a new narrative for the 21st century, one that will connect with the hopes and dreams of the coming generations…’
Those hopes and dreams will implicate all of us directly in considerably more than our local or our European problems, for already Europe is seeking to give a lead to the rest of the world in facing up to the threat of climate change, one of the gravest challenges our planet has ever faced and one which points up starkly our interdependency and co-responsibility.
Clearly a speedy resolution of the constitutional issue would free the Union up to get on with constructing the best narrative possible both within Europe and on the global stage, for a tremendous perspective opens before us of a European Union playing its full part, based on the best of European values, in addressing the many global challenges of the 21st century. Among them is the role played by religion, by churches, by interfaith dialogue and interfaith tensions in the years ahead. Clearly these are matters of considerable import to this forum and already a new part of the European narrative is in evidence.
Article 1 – 52 of the draft Constitutional Treaty recognises the identity and specific contribution of the churches and philosophical and non-confessional organisations. It commits the Union to maintaining an open, transparent and regular dialogue with them. The Irish government, with the support of the parliamentary opposition, has initiated a similar institutional dialogue at national level and the first plenary meeting in this novel framework, involving leaders of Ireland’s Jewish, Muslim, Christian and other faith communities, took place just last month. At that inaugural meeting our Taoiseach said ‘If modern Ireland were to dislocate from its hinterland of religious belief, our culture and our society would be cut adrift from its deepest roots and from one of its most vital sources of nourishment for its growth and direction into the future’.’
To engage in a structured way, as we are now doing in Ireland, with the energy and the ideas of our faith communities is a logical addition to the many mechanisms that already exist to support participative democracy. It is a timely development for these early years of the new century and millennium have been characterised by very troubling questions of religion, religious identity and religious belief. Is it possible to promote and conduct a ‘dialogue of civilisations’, especially a dialogue involving Europe and the Middle East, if we turn a blind eye to the religious dimension of our own society? The immediate implication of institutionalised dialogue with the faith communities is that it acknowledges in a concrete way the mutuality of the State, secular and religious spheres and creates a forum in which the debate about the role and extent of the reach of each can be progressed coherently. In a world where there is plenty of evidence to show the threats to individual human rights that arise from failure to strike a balance between theocratic models on the one hand and dogmatic secularism on the other, such a forum is a very encouraging step.
The European Union’s readiness to engage with churches and faith communities has the potential to evolve into a novel paradigm for Church–State relations in a new era of European history. It is an important recognition of the considerable moral influence of faith communities as well as their great contribution to civic strength and well-being. It is also an important conduit for the intellectual cross-fertilisation which allows us to harness the very best of our rich and diverse religious and secular heritage and co-opt them in building a better, more comfortable future for all.
On this the 50th anniversary of the European Union, we should not dodge the question of the relationship which should or could exist between the churches and the wider human society. There are those who believe that neither work and productivity, nor bread and circuses answer our unending search for meaning, the yearnings of our ‘pilgrim souls’. There are those for whom only that which is objectively scientifically verifiable is worthy of the label truth. Within the European tradition, from the time of Socrates, the scientific spirit and the sense of God have found a common language. Reason sets a limit to the claims of religion and religion sets a limit to the claims of reason. In this the most educated age ever in Europe we have a fascinating debate to look forward to in the fruitful and hopefully respectful interaction of the two. Both would claim to be repositories of value systems which promote human dignity and conduce to a profound if very different understanding of the nature of life and death. There is little but the flattery of echo in staying put inside one’s own sphere and as the Union has taught us there is much to be gained from respectful dialogue.
Interfaith and interdenominational dialogue have emerged as growing impulses and constructs in a world in evident need of such bridges to mutual understanding and such bulwarks against sectarian hatred. They have not emerged a moment too soon nor can their work progress quickly enough. It is no exaggeration to say that, not for the first time in history, global, political stability is adversely affected by the ignorance and fear that have festered in the absence of meaningful, sustained and widespread dialogue between the peoples who make up the world’s great faith systems. There is a raw, nervy touchiness which is in need of healing, in need of being ministered to. Governments hold some of the cards in promoting mutual understanding across geographic and spiritual borders but they do not hold them all. The churches arguably hold the aces.
Every so often the world comes under the benign influence of a fresh, overpowering surge of imagination. The foundation of the European Union was part of such a tide. It is important that it does not ebb. There are conflicts and famines, global warming, AIDS, endemic poverty, pitifully gross waste of human talent, and especially the talent of women, on a scale large enough and intractable enough to temper our self-congratulation but not our determination to put the best of European values to work on our continent and in our world, to keep making it better for the many, to keep focussed on the rights of the suffering individual, whose hope we are.
It is no accident that the European Union came into being at the same time as access to education widened right across Europe, moving it from the preserve of the few to the right of the many. At long last Europe began to harvest and harness its greatest natural resource, the brain-power of its people, both male and female, empowering them as individuals in ways unthinkable only a few short generations ago. No longer fodder for wicked wars, no longer unwillingly corralled into narrow spaces, dictated by convention, tradition or prejudice, the men and women of the European Union are together renewing the face of their earth. If you want to see how powerful is the energy once wasted by gender bias and educational underachievement, just look at the story of today’s Ireland which is for the first time in its history flying high on two wings.
These are the stories of transcendence which will fill Europe’s history books of tomorrow, of the problems solved by this most capable and confident of generations. They have what Seamus Heaney calls ‘intelligences, brightened and unmannerly as crowbars’. They are going to need them for there are plenty of obstacles and difficulties up ahead but the more people who are pulling together in the same direction, the quicker we will remove the barriers to the fullest social inclusion, the greatest peace the world has ever experienced. Like the Magi, we follow a star that leads to peace and goodwill among humankind. Like the Magi, we bring different gifts, have different personalities and perspectives. Our European civilisation needs the infusion, the inventiveness, the imagination of them all. Those who bequeathed us the gift of the European Union had the wind of desperation at their backs, the last breaths of millions of needless dead, their humanity trampled into the dust of history like so much inconsequential rubbish. We live well because they died badly. We live with the intelligent politics of good neighbourliness, they died because of the squalid, stupid politics of national vanities. We are a golden generation in this golden anniversary, inheritors of a Europe of equals, creators between us of the best Europe yet, a place where love of one another has a chance to take hold, to prove its worth at long last.
Thank you.