Religion: a Solution or a Problem for the Legitimisation of the European Union?

Abstract

Religion is not a competency of the European Union (EU), but has been more and more an issue on its agenda. The question is to know whether this plays in favour of the legitimisation of a supra- or transnational polity, or represents a further obstacle to it. The central hypothesis discussed here is that religion in itself is less a specific problem than a revelator of the EU difficulty in dealing with any normative reference. Several examples may be taken to illustrate this position, as a synthesis of different empirical researches. The ‘Christian heritage’ debate in the constitutional process has offered no key to solve the longstanding quest for a European memory. Through the institutionalisation of religions as privileged partners of European governance, the EU has tried to socialise religious actors and to make them comply with the rules of participative democracy (pluralism, mutual recognition …). Beyond the interactions of the policy game in Brussels, these rules do not always appear as generalised social norms. This is highlighted by the growing interventions of churches to defend their particularisms in the media or by the use of religious references – intimately linked with nationalist ones – to question European integration in old and new member states. However, these controversies on the new place of the sacred in public life tend to follow well-established patterns of political struggles, which is a reason to believe that, to a large extent, God is a ‘business as usual’ for the EU.

Notes

1 Relations between churches and states have been framed by different national histories and remain invested with a strong symbolic meaning. However, dialogue between political and spiritual authorities is a widely-acknowledged reality today in Europe. Even ‘laïque’ France has established exchange channels at the highest levels. On the new functions accorded to religions in contemporary societies, see Jolly (2005).

2 Habermas (2004, pp. 6–18) uses the term ‘présupposés’.

3 The choice to surf on the Da Vinci Code wave rather than to resist it is particularly obvious as far as Opus Dei is concerned, with its important efforts in counter-communication (a film Jesus Decoded as a factual rectification, leaflets, a website) (see http://fr.be.opusdei.org/ssec.php?a=2937 (last accessed 22 May 2007)). Outside Europe there were boycotts and bans (in China, Iran, India): see Yannou (2006).