What is the European Union? Religion between Neofunctionalism and Intergovernmentalism

Abstract

This paper examines the ways in which religion has played a part in the process of European integration. By exploring the position of religious communities towards the European Community since the 1950s until today, it argues that the place of religion has been influenced by the theoretical debates on European integration, namely neofunctionalism and intergovernmentalism. It suggests that, since 1992, the European Union has adopted a neofunctionalist approach towards religious communities, in contrast with the dominant intergovernmentalist integration process between EU member-states. The analysis of religion in relation to this theoretical dispute raises questions about the nature of the European Union and the adaptation of religious communities to supranational institutions.

Keywords:

• religion
• the European Union
• theories of European integration
• neofunctionalism
• intergovernmentalism
• the concept of spillover
• the British Churches

Acknowledgements

A draft of this paper was presented at the Workshop on Religion in Europe. Europe and Religion, the European Consortium for Political Research, Rennes, France, 11–16 April 2008. The author would like to thank the participants of the workshop and this journal's two anonymous reviewers for useful comments.

Notes

¹Chenaux, Une Europe Vaticane?; Vincent and Willaime, Religions et transformations de l'Europe; Willaime, Europe et religions; Basdevant-Gaudemet and Messner, Les origines historiques …; Koslowski, Imaginer l'Europe.

²de Montclos, ‘Le Saint-Siège et la construction de l'Europe’; Sutton, ‘John Paul II's Idea of Europe’; Byrnes and Katzenstein, Religion in an Expanding Europe; Chelini-Pont, ‘Papal Thought on Europe …’.

³Greschat and Loth, Die Christen; Zeilstra, European Unity; Willaime, La précarité protestante.

⁴The establishment of the Ecumenical Centre dates back to the so-called ‘religious retreats’ of European technocrats working in Brussels, which first met in 1959. In 1966, the Centre appointed the Revd Marc Lenders as the Permanent Delegate of churches in contact with European institutions.

⁵Weninger, Europa ohne Gott?

⁶Massignon, Dieux et fonctionnaires; Haguenau-Moizard, Etat et religions en Europe.

⁷Rosamond, Theories of European Integration; Wiener and Diez, European Integration Theory; Cini and Bourne, Palgrave Advances in European Union Studies; Hix, The Political System of the European Union; Hooghe and Marks, Multi-level Governance and European Integration; Böröcz and Sarkar, ‘What is the European Union?’; Cini, European Union Politics.

⁸Leustean and Madeley, Religion, Politics and Law in the European Union.

⁹Haas, The Uniting of Europe.

¹⁰Lindberg, The Political Dynamics.

¹¹Jorgensen, Pollack and Rosamond, Handbook of European Union Politics; Dinan, Origins and Evolution of the European Union.

¹²Haas and Schmitter, ‘Economics and Differential Patterns of Integration’, 718.

¹³O'Neill, Politics of European Integration, 61.

¹⁴Hoffmann, ‘Obstinate or Obsolete?’

¹⁵Hoffmann, The European Sisyphus, 5.

¹⁶Stone Sweet and Sandholtz, ‘Integration, Supranational Governance’; Stone Sweet and Brunell, Constructing a Supranational Constitution.

¹⁷Moravcsik, The Choice for Europe, 3.

¹⁸Ibid., 18.

¹⁹Coupland, Britannia, Europa and Christendom, 175.

²⁰ Newsletter of the Ecumenical Centre in Brussels, May 1992.

²¹ Christians and the Common Market, 13.

²²Ibid.

²³Ibid.

²⁴Ibid.

²⁶ Christians and the Common Market, 4.

²⁵Coupland, Britannia, Europa and Christendom, 179–88.

²⁷ Common Market Commonsense No. 9: Religious Freedom. Leaflet by the Conservative Central Office, the 1962 Party Conference apud Christians and the Common Market.

²⁸ Christians and the Common Market, 15–21.

²⁹Ibid., 103–4.

³¹Barney Milligan, ‘Christians and the Common Market’, The Church Times, 10 September 1971, 1–4; reprinted in Going into Europe.

³⁰ Going into Europe.

³²The following communities were involved in this programme: Christian Aid; Church of England Board for Social Responsibility; United Reformed Church; Methodist Church; OXFAM; Roman Catholic Church, Justice and Peace Commission; Society of Friends; Third World First; Women's League for Peace and Freedom; World Development Movement; War on Want.

³³ Britain in Europe.

³⁴ The Church of England and the Challenge of Europe.

³⁵ Europe: A Paper.

³⁶The author would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for this comment.

³⁷Regarding the position of Orthodox Churches towards the European Union, see also the debates on references to the Orthodox faith on identity cards in Greece in 2000.

³⁸ The Church of England and Europe.