In a move that seriously threatens the separation of religion and politics, the EU has given the churches special access to its officials at the highest level. This is set out in Article 17 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, introduced by the Lisbon Treaty. It reads:
Status of churches and non-confessional organisations
1. The Union respects and does not prejudice the status under national law of churches and religious associations or communities in the Member States.
2. The Union equally respects the status under national law of philosophical and non-confessional organisations.
3. Recognising their identity and their specific contribution, the Union shall maintain an open, transparent and regular dialogue with these churches and organisations.
The first clause means that no EU instrument of non-discrimination, no rule about commitment to the European Convention of Human Rights can be used to interfere with either the international treaties or concordats that the Vatican has concluded with many countries or any national arrangements that provide the churches with unwarranted privileges.
The second clause is included perforce, given the EU’s commitment to non-discrimination on grounds of religion or belief, which is anyway enshrined in both the Universal Declaration and the European Convention of Human Rights.
The third clause gives the churches (and the non-religious organisations) an entrée into the internal policy debates of the Union. Note that this clause mentions neither other religions, though they are not in practice excluded, nor the “religious associations or communities“ mentioned in the first clause, which have so far been excluded.
The EU, a secular institution committed to democracy and human rights, thus gives favoured treatment to religious institutions
- that have no legitimate role in its concerns,
- that are internally autocratic rather than democratic,
- that include the Roman Catholic church which, in the shape of the Vatican, is a foreign state that is not in the EU, has no wish to join, and is the only European state that has not signed the European Convention on Human Rights, being in fact committed to religious values that are explicitly hostile to various human rights.
Article 17 has its origin in persistent and largely private lobbying by the Vatican and other Christian churches over at least 15 years. Clauses 1 and 2 were included in a Declaration attached to the Amsterdam Treaty of 1997; clause 3 made its appearance when the consultation began on the planned constitution for Europe, rejection of which led on to the Lisbon Treaty. In that consultation the two conferences of European bishops – COMECE for the Catholics and CEC for the Protestants and Orthodox – demanded in an unpublished memorandum
- consultation at the pre-legislative stage on all proposed directives and initiatives
- regular dialogue between COMECE and CEC and the staff of the Commission President
- working sessions on more specific issues when the churches had particular concerns
- personal meetings with the President of the EU Commission
- a liaison office “within the services of the European Commission . . . (t)he purpose [of which] should be to facilitate the consultation of the Churches . . . on planned legislation, to make use of the forward thinking that religions can offer with regards to policy-making, and to provide a reference point through which the Churches . . can contact the relevant services of the Commission . . .” They wanted the office to be located in the Secretariat General so that “it would be informed about any legislative and political initiatives to which Churches . . might have a contribution to make.”
In the event the Churches have not won their office within the Commission secretariat – but they obtained everything else even before the approval of the Lisbon Treaty. As their President conveniently set out in a speech at the annual meeting of COMECE in November 2007:
- there are first of all “seminars which the European Commission has been arranging for years on fundamental issues with church representatives”. These day-long seminars with senior EU officials, up to Commissioner level, cover social issues such as (in 2010) poverty and social exclusion.
- Next there are “the traditional talks between [church] representatives and the church in question with governments in the framework of their six-monthly EU Council Presidency”. It is possible that with the creation of the semi-permanent Council Presidency these meetings with the national Council presidencies may come to an end.
- And there are “the . . . key talks of the last three years, to which leading religious representatives were invited by the presidents of the European institutions”. (These annual meetings have now bring together representatives of all the main world religions with the Presidents of the Commission, Council and Parliament.)
The COMECE president, however, was not satisfied with this high level of involvement. He went on to say:
“These talks are indeed necessary but they alone are in our view not enough to satisfy the offer of an open, transparent and regular dialogue. . . Entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty will enhance recognition of the relationships between Church and state at Member State level and the EU’s dialogue with churches and religious communities at the primary law level of the European Union. This is why one should now start giving real thought to the form of this dialogue.”
As stated, Article 17 applies not just to religious organisations but also to ‘philosophical and non-confessional organisations’. On the face of it this makes the provision neutral, but in practice this is far from true:
- there is little reason for non-religious people to organise as such and hence the bodies that represent non-religious lifestances are small and weak by comparison with the churches, whose doctrine requires their believers to join and contribute;
- religious people very commonly work separately from the rest of the community when they are providing education, charitable services and so on. By contrast, humanists and other non-religious people see a virtue in working with everyone else in civil society organisations that aim for the common good. This means that the churches have extensive resources to draw on when in dialogue with the EU.
Humanists and the secular community generally also object on principle to privileged access to the EU’s deliberations being offered under Article 17 to anybody – themselves included. This is especially true when those privileged are organisations such as the churches or humanist associations whose expertise – theological or moral – is irrelevant to the topics under discussion. Given the existence of Article 17, however, humanist, laique and freethinking bodies attempt to use it to argue from humanist ethical principles and to channel evidence-based comment to the EU.
The risk of detriment from the Article 17 dialogue is real. The churches hold strong views that already have a damaging effect on legislation in many countries on matters such as genetic research, sexual behaviour (abortion, contraception, homosexuality etc), divorce, assisted dying etc – views that are often not shared by their own members, let alone by the population at large. They also claim exemptions for themselves and their followers from many aspects of laws banning discrimination based on religion or belief, on sex and on sexuality.
Yet they are now given by Article 17 the opportunity to influence European directives and policies, often be mandatory on all member states, in ways that are undemocratic both in form (unpublicised consultation with EU officials etc) and in substance (in that the churches are often unrepresentative even of their own followers). Moreover, while the EU’s concerns were previously narrowly confined to markets and economics, they are now steadily enlarging into just those areas where religious dogma is often so damaging to society.
David Pollock European Humanist Federation Member of the Advisory Board of the European Parliament Platform for Secularism in Politics (EPPSP) david.pollock@virgin.net
Disclaimer: the views expressed in the different articles of this website are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the EPPSP or of its members.