Peace

Human Rights

Economic Justice

What is QCEA?

Structure & Staff

Contact Us

Take Action

Subscriptions and Membership

Donate

Study Tours

Internships

Around Europe

Briefing Papers

Occasional Papers and other publications

Ordering Printed Copies

History

Meeting Rooms Available

• Conflict Prevention in Practice

• The Future of Europe: Our Vision

The project was researched by looking at activities both at the European level and on the ground to see how conflict prevention was being mainstreamed in the institutions and how this was being translated into implementation in the field. This involved interviewing officials of the Commission’s Conflict Prevention Unit, desk officers of six focus countries, delegation workers, ambassadors for the countries, the ACP Secretariat in Brussels, and civil society workers in the field.

Those interviewed were generally very responsive. The Commission officials in Brussels were particularly accessible. The other Brussels contacts, namely ambassadors and the ACP Secretariat, were also helpful. The lack of response by the Commission delegations, based in the focus countries, and by civil society organisations was disappointing. The overall pattern was that the further away from Brussels the organisation was located, the less likely it was to acknowledge and respond to our enquiries.

My overall impression from the research was that the mainstream-ing of conflict prevention into development cooperation is progressing at a steady and sure pace. There is still, however, a lot of room for improvement. These are still early days and without all the Country Strategy Papers (CSPs) agreed upon yet, nor the actual implementation of projects post-Cotonou in operation, it will still take some time to tell how effectively conflict prevention policy translates into action.

Now that the project has been completed, it has been circulated amongst a number of EPLO members. They will draw recommendations from the report, which will be used as an advocacy tool to highlight to the Commission where it has so far been successful and where there is room for improvement in tackling the root causes of conflict.

These recommendations may suggest improvements in the following areas: awareness-raising about conflict prevention with Commission officials (desk officers, delegations) through seminars and the distribution of improved ‘conflict indicators’; ensuring that conflict prevention is coherently integrated into sectoral programming in the CSPs and is not merely paid lip service to; further involving civil society groups in the field who can bring their expertise in conflict mediation to the drafting of CSPs.

David Ferrard

Return to contents

The conference theme was introduced by Bronwen Thomas, Programme Assistant at QCEA, with an overview of the on-going QCEA consultation on the Future of Europe. Friends then heard from Michael Lake, former EU ambassador to Hungary and Turkey, on the enlargement of the EU. Neville Keery, Clerk of QCEA, stepped in at the last minute in place of Brigid Laffen of the Dublin European Institute, to talk us through some of the intricacies of the current EU system. Working groups then took up the four themes of Democratic and Spiritual Values, External Relations, Foreign and Security Policy and Supporting the Citizen with the aim of coming up with conclusions to feed into the QCEA submission to the Convention on the Future of Europe.

The conclusions of the conference fall into two categories: those conclusions which directly relate to the work of the Convention and those points which, while not immediately relevant to the Convention, are of great importance to the future work of QCEA and which we would hope to see the EU working towards as well. Since the conference, the Convention Presidium has produced a ‘Preliminary Draft Constitutional Treaty’ outlining the provisions that the final text may include. Parts of this are of relevance to the recommendations of the conference working groups and are commented on below.

Conclusions relevant to Convention:

- In any future constitutional Treaty, it was suggested that the preamble would be a potential area for incorporating the values and principles of Friends. It has been suggested in the Convention that the preamble of the Charter of Fundamental Rights could be used as a preamble to the new Treaty.

- Three key values which emerged repeatedly during the conference as priorities were conflict prevention, sustainable development and respect for human rights. It was stressed that these objectives are interdependent and should be primary objectives of the EU.

- If a common foreign and security policy were to be developed, it should be non-military in nature and based on the principle of conflict prevention. The EU has the opportunity to develop alternatives to the use of force and should be focussing resources on research into such alternatives.

- The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU should be fully incorporated into EU law and social and economic rights should be strengthened. Since the conference, the Convention working group on the Charter has also recommended the inclusion of the Charter in the Treaty, which is welcomed. It seems unlikely that the contents of the Charter will be reopened for debate at this time.

- The rights of EU citizenship should be applicable to all residents of the EU in order to combat discrimination. Currently only citizens of the member states are entitled to EU citizenship rights, excluding the many third-country nationals legally resident within the EU. The preliminary draft of the constitutional Treaty does not alter the existing provisions on citizenship. A debate on this issue in the Convention should be a priority.

- In order to develop participatory citizenship, there is a need for better, more accessible information about the EU. There should also be a stronger role for civil society and for religious bodies. The draft constitutional Treaty includes an article on ‘democratic participation’ which is welcomed.

- There is a need for greater transparency in the EU. The meetings of the Council of the EU should be open to public scrutiny, making the actions of member states within the EU more transparent. The Commission should be obliged to make public all consultation with outside bodies.

A general issue raised during the conference was that of the difference between a statement of values and objectives and their implementation or realisation. In focussing on the work of the Convention, attention is inevitably given to the stated aims and values of the EU. During the conference Friends also highlighted a number of issues that need to be addressed in order to implement the values of conflict prevention, sustainable development and respect for human rights.

These issues are of great importance to QCEA’s current and future programme work but are not directly relevant to the current work of the Convention. The focus of the Convention has been rather narrow, looking primarily at institutional arrangements rather than at the values of the EU and the content of policies. This is a cause for concern. The Civil Society Contact Group (a coalition of NGOs working to promote the concerns of civil society at the Convention) has launched the act4europe.campaign to try to remedy this situation. The first campaign action has been to push for the creation of a working group on social issues. Other issues such as European citizenship, the aims and content of a common foreign policy and the global outlook of the EU also need to be debated in the Convention. The narrow focus on institutional architecture means that the Convention risks missing the opportunity to develop an EU which really reflects the concerns and values of the European people.

Bronwen Thomas

Click below to download:

Longer version of the above report

Michael Lake’s speech

Working group reports:

Democracy and Spiritual Values: governance of an enlarged Europe

External Relations: focus on development and trade

Foreign and Security Policy: conflict prevention and EU / US relations

Supporting the Citizen: rights, responsibilities and social policy

Return to contents

Michel Barnier, European Commissioner for Regional Policy, reminded us that future enlargement of the European Union would bring some Islamic states into the EU. This would raise more urgently the questions of how to prevent ghettoisation and of how to increase solidarity with vulnerable groups in our societies. The financing of very local community building projects was only one answer to these questions.

The EU guarantees freedom of religion (Article 13 of the Treaty of Amsterdam). In this context, Nadeem Elyas from Germany suggested that a responsibility of the EU could be to find partners for dialogue within its own Muslim communities who could serve as bridge builders with Islamic states. Furthermore, there is a sense that Muslims themselves are not doing enough in relation to their integration. Often they are not prepared to enter into dialogue. Muslim leaders, like those of other faiths, should seek contact with all parts of society. For example, an “Open Mosque” day in Germany attracted 200,000 visitors, and both the Lutheran and Catholic Churches in Germany are setting up “Encounters with Muslims”. One suggestion was to widen intercultural training of both teachers of RE for all age groups and for leaders of all faiths. Another was to address the fact that there is little or no input from Islamic organisations to asylum and refugee policies and programmes.

Peter Grabenberger of the Board of the Cultural Council of the city of Graz, Austria, provided us with an inspiring picture of programmes taking place in his city, which has become a city of open-minded spirituality and is a platform for inter-cultural, multi-national and inter-religious encounter. Graz has become “a platform in the dialogue for peace’, encouraging dialogue between conflicting partners who are neighbours. Some elements of the work progressing in Graz include:

- Graz will be the cultural capital of Europe 2003.

- The Trigon project, a co-operation project of Austrian, Hungarian, Yugoslavian and Italian artists.

- A Kalachakra-Peace initiative linked to the World Assembly of Buddhists and the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama was visiting with former rock singer Cat Stevens, now Yusuf Islam, who is taking part as one of the representatives of the major world religions in a public event with the five major world religions.

- The university has organised a Vice-Chancellors’ conference and is taking a lead role in the reconstruction of universities in Bosnia and Kosovo.

The city wants to develop a climate of spiritual openness in the context of having over 140 nationalities present in the city. At the heart of this strategy are the experiences of members of majority religions who have migrated to a city where they find themselves members of a religious minority and the work they have done on religious minority rights. Over the last fifteen years the city has become a platform for NGOs working in this field.

Another example came from Leicester in the UK. This is the centre of the Jains in Europe. Leicester has a Council of Faiths and an inter-faith Councillor with responsibility for policies relating to births, deaths, education, and healthcare. Leicester holds Faith Leaders’ Forums. Inter-faith as well as intra-faith dialogue is crucial for the coming decades and is happening in many places already.

David Stevens, the General Secretary of the Irish Council of Churches, speaking from the experience of a long history of violent communal division in which religion plays a significant role, said that in divided societies policymakers need to be attentive to equity, diversity and interdependence.

Interdependence is about the need to make connections between people and social institutions. There is an important role for civil society, which includes religious bodies, business, trade unions, schools, voluntary and community groups, backed up by government and other public authorities. If policymakers simply concentrate on promoting equity and issues of diversity the danger is they may further ghettoise the society.

It is also important to recognise that there are parts of society where faiths play a different role. For example, a large majority of people in East Germany would see themselves as not connected to a church and 20% see themselves as humanists.

Minister Chabert of the Brussels Regional Government highlighted some important principles for communal cohesion, stressing that ‘the very first principle must be the absolute conviction that we will succeed in resolving our disputes without violence’, a principle that has served Belgium well. We must never forget that Europe is a Peace Project: “If you want peace, cultivate justice.”

Anita Wuyts

Return to contents

Saturday 5th – Saturday 12th April 2003

Young Persons’ Study Tour

Wednesday 25th June – Saturday 5th July 2003

Contact the QCEA Office for more details and an application form or read more about the study tours.

Return to contents