QCEA: The Future of Europe: Spiritual Values and Citizenship

Sixty-five F/friends gathered at Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre in Birmingham, UK, for the 2002 QCEA Associate Members’ conference. Participants came from Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg and France, with the greatest number coming from Britain. Such was the interest in the topic that the conference was oversubscribed.

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 working groups can be summarised in two categories. First, those conclusions which directly relate to the work of the Convention. Second, 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. The values included in the preamble should be implemented in all areas of EU policy. The draft constitutional Treaty includes a preamble as well as sections on values and objectives of the EU. All these are areas which have yet to be fleshed out, although it has been suggested that the preamble of the Charter of Fundamental Rights could be used in this context.

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

The development of a common EU foreign and security policy was discussed. No firm conclusion was reached on whether the development of such a policy would be a good thing, but it was clear that if any common policy is developed it should be non-military in nature and based on 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 the sections on social and economic rights should be strengthened. Since the conference, the Convention working group on the Charter has recommended that the Charter be included in the new Treaty, which is welcomed. However, it looks unlikely for the contents of the Charter to 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. The current situation is that 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, and in fact this has not been debated in the Convention. A debate on this issue 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.

Other conclusions:

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:

In the field of foreign and security policy it was felt that working towards a non-military common foreign policy based on conflict prevention would mean: the conversion of the arms industry and the demilitarisation of the economy; commitment to the right to conscientious objection to armed service and to the paying of taxes for military purposes; decommissioning weapons, including small arms; dialogue with US Quakers on peace-making initiatives.

In external relations sustainable development was seen to have environmental, social and economic aspects. Some moves towards this would include: fair trade; the use of trade agreements to promote human rights; the end of unfair subsidies; the promotion of labour and environmental standards; development projects based on empowerment and local ownership; working towards greater transparency in the WTO; education among EU citizens of the importance of development issues and raised awareness of the need to change lifestyles within the EU.

It was felt that in order to develop a more participatory citizenship there needed to be more objective media coverage and better education about the EU. In terms of human rights it was felt that more needed to be done to implement existing human rights law. An example given was the treatment of the Roma people in some of the candidate states where practice does not seem to have caught up with improvements in legislation.

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 on 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 within the Convention in order to prioritise the fight against social exclusion and unemployment.

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.

Conference materials also available:

Keynote speech by Michael Lake

Reports of working groups:

Democratic and spiritual values: the governance of an enlarged Europe

External relations: focus on development and trade

Foreign and security policy: focus on conflict prevention and US / Europe relations

Supporting the citizen: rights, responsibilities and social policy

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Further Information on The Future of Europe

• Briefing Papers on the Constitutional Treaty and Referenda

• Briefing Papers on the Militarisation of the EU

• Spiritual Values and Citizenship Project