Many of you will know these words of Commission President Jacques Delors from over twenty years ago:

“If in the next ten years we haven’t managed to give a Soul to Europe, to give it spirituality and meaning, the game will be up” – ‘Speech to the churches’, Brussels 4 February 1992.

Under Delors and others the idea was taken further in official EU projects, but these now seem to have wound down. As far as I know the phrase ‘soul for Europe’ is mainly used today by non-official or semi-official bodies, and largely in a cultural rather than a spiritual sense. That is how President Barroso meant it in a conference speech he gave in 2014. His speech was titled, ‘Europe’s cultural dimension 10 years on’ – that is, 10 years on from the founding of a semi-official project which is called ‘A soul for Europe’ but which seems to have little interest in religion.

Well, we are nearly 25 years on from Delors’ statement: has the EU now got a soul, and if not, is ‘the game up’? I think the answer to both those questions is ‘no’. But it is certainly true, as I said yesterday, that the EU is facing a deep crisis of purpose and identity – a crisis of ‘soul’ in the sense – so the question remains even more urgent today than it was in 1992.

In 2003 in a very profound document, Ecclesia in Europa, Pope John Paul II lamented the “loss of Europe’s Christian memory and heritage;” Europeans were, he said, living like “heirs who have squandered a patrimony entrusted to them by history.” Many of us will share that lament, see its consequences on a regular basis, and hope and pray that one day Europe might rediscover that patrimony again. But note that Pope John Paul was referring not specifically to the EU per se but to Europe as a culture or civilization. Now we might well say that European culture (assuming we can define it clearly enough – which is no easy task) needs something like a ‘soul’ – a unifying spiritual dynamic to give it life – if it is to retain its identity and energy. I won’t discuss that large question today. I want to ask the more specific question of whether a political institution with a limited purpose like the EU needs a ‘soul’, and what it would mean for it to have one – or more than one.

Sixty years ago Robert Schuman described the new structure he had helped birth as ‘community of peoples deeply rooted in Christian values’. What do we make of that aspiration in today’s extensively secularized and religiously pluralistic EU? Let me turn again to the European Commission Reflection Group document I quoted yesterday, The Spiritual and Cultural Dimension of Europe (2004). The Group’s concern was to recover a new spirit of political unity in the face of the challenges facing the EU following years of concentration on economic integration, and as 10 new countries were about to accede. They said this:

‘The needed ‘forces of cohesion’ to support this political unity must be found in Europe’s common culture. A mere list of values, as in the Charter of Fundamental Rights [‘the indivisible, universal values of human dignity, freedom, equality, and solidarity’] would not be enough.’

Let me add that these were ratified in 2002 and since then incorporated into the Treaty of Lisbon. But, the authors went on, ‘every attempt to codify “European values” is inevitably confronted by a variety of diverging national, regional, ethnic, sectarian, and social understandings’.

That is, the very core values on which the EU is founded can be interpreted very differently due to the pluralistic nature of the EU. I think the authors were right to highlight this challenge. It means that not only particular policies but also the very meaning of the EU’s core values will be continually contested, with diverse spiritual and philosophical communities reading them very differently, arguing about them, seeking to push the EU towards one or the other interpretation. The EU as a political body will necessary reflect the pluralism of its underlying culture and in the societies of its diverse nation states. The EU is pluralistic at its heart. It is, inevitably, a community of souls – plural. It does not and, I think, cannot share a single, unifying ‘soul’.

But I want to suggest that even if European culture did consist of a single soul, a single faith-based culture, its political institutions should nevertheless make space for a plurality of souls. Political bodies like the EU have a limited remit, and that remit does not include promoting spiritual unity – the faith of Europe’s citizens is not a matter for political institutions but for faith communities operating in the free space of civil society. The EU cannot possess, and should not seek, a single ‘soul’, but should be an open forum in which a plurality of ‘souls’ can constructively debate and cooperate. The EU should refrain from officially promoting any particular religion or belief and treat all as even-handedly as possible, within the limits of the law. And that is what it seeks to do. Even in the 1950s, it was already doing so. It had little choice, for already for 200 years Christianity had shared European public space with secular humanism, and neither tradition could monopolise the new institutions. That is one reason why the Schuman Declaration rightly contains no theology – even though we can recognise it as breathing a deeply Christian spirit. Since the Enlightenment Europe has had two souls, sometimes in deep conflict, sometimes in cooperation. By the early 21st century that space has been joined by many other faith traditions, including several significant minority religious traditions, many with roots beyond Europe. And it has rightly sought to accommodate them in shared European public space, again within the limits of the law.

It’s important to note that at its founding the EU did not adopt the model of the confessional state existing in some of its member states (e.g. Italy, the UK, Greece, Ireland, Finland). But, contrary to perceptions of some, nor did it adopt the model of strict separationism that keeps religion out of the public sphere (as in French laïcité). While the EU does not have official competence over religious policy as such, it has in fact been moving slowly towards what is called a ‘cooperationist’ model seen in member states such as Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK. This model includes official state neutrality and extensive religious freedom, while also being open to a religious presence in the public square and constructive partnerships with religious organisations in the delivery of public services such as education, welfare and health, or in the media. This development was ratified at the Treaty of Lisbon and is to be welcomed and encouraged.

In the light of this, I think it was right that the preambles to the proposed European Constitution, and later to the Lisbon Treaty, did not grant special constitutional status to Christianity. Several member-state constitutions do this and we might debate if that is a good idea. But it was not appropriate for the EU. Now if there was to be such a preamble mentioning the roots of European culture, it certainly could and should have recognised the predominant historical influence of Christianity. Former French President Giscard D’Estaing, who chaired the constitutional process, was not going to have that. But to have accorded privileged constitutional status to only one of the EU’s faith traditions – even Christianity – would have breached its duty of impartiality. As one legal theorist puts it:

“[T]he absence of Christian values in the EU Treaty and Charter of Fundamental Rights is not to be interpreted as a thundering silence, but instead…as a positive affirmation of a secular approach that values diversity and cherishes all world- views while refraining from embracing any of them” (L Zucca, 2012: 88).

I propose that the unity and identity of the EU should, then, derive from common commitments to its specific constitutional values and political objectives– even when their meaning is constantly debated. But it might be replied: can the EU even agree on these narrower objectives in the absence of a shared soul or faith? Won’t its citizens’ and its leaders’ commitments to these values and objectives be fragile if they are divided over the grounds on which they are based? The answer to that is: yes, possibly. But that is not a deficiency that EU institutions themselves can remedy. That challenge is, again, one for civil society, for faith communities, and for each of us. We are the ones who have to work to shore up the spiritual foundations of the EU. It won’t do it for us, and it shouldn’t. Having said that, it is vital to note that even in spite of the spiritual pluralism at the heart of the EU, there is a significant degree of workable consensus on many of the EU’s core constitutional values and political objectives. It’s essential to recall this at a time when the EU is so deeply divided on its most recent crises. For example, the Charter does enshrine many such commitments – it contains a lot more than the abstract list of values I cited earlier. Beyond that the EU is also committed to many other crucial political objectives: human rights and democracy – and on those it has given great help to the new democracies of southern and eastern Europe; environmental protection – on which it has been a pioneer; foreign aid – it is the second largest donor to sub-Saharan Africa via its European Development Fund; religious freedom – as expressed, for example, in the important 2013 ‘Guidelines’ on religious freedom governing the External Action Service. These are solid bases for common action and they should be the focus of the kind of political integration we seek: not at the level of souls, but at the level of political principles and practice.

Let me add here that this has vital implications for how we see the place of Islam in Europe, and specifically Turkish accession. Whatever we make of ‘Europe’ as an essentially Christian civilization, in contrast to Islamic civilization – and the contrasts are real – the EU cannot regard Islam as inherently external or alien to it. Apart from anything else, that would turn millions of existing EU citizens, the vast majority of them peaceful and law- abiding, into second-class citizens. Worse, it would risk fuelling the sense of grievance that makes some segregated Muslim communities in same parts of Europe a breeding ground for extremism. It would play directly into the anti- western narrative of Salafism. It is right, therefore, that the formal terms of accession of new members, including Turkey, should be political and constitutional and not religious. That Turkey is a majority-Muslin state is not in itself enough to bar it from membership. As it happens, it is doing quite enough to exclude itself on narrowly political grounds from membership at the moment. I acknowledge that here there are different Christian views. For example, former Council President Herman van Rompuy said:

‘It’s a matter of fact that the universal values which are in force in Europe, and which are also the fundamental values of Christianity, will lose vigour with the entry of a large Islamic country such as Turkey’.

But even if he is right, that is still not yet enough to bar Turkey in principle. For I am arguing that it is not within the power or competence political institutions to generate all the underlying values on which they rest – that is mostly a task of civil society. And let’s be honest, these European universal values have already lost much of their vigour because Europeans themselves have lost confidence in them, partly due to their own secularization, including the self-secularization of Christianity. There is an important debate to be had here, but I tend to agree with the members of the Reflection Group, who said this:

‘The only feasible path toward a solution of the problems posed by Islam in Europe consists in understanding the consequences of transplanting Islam into a European context, not in a frontal confrontation between the abstractions of “Christian Europe” and “Islam”.’

The struggle for the soul of the EU – or rather the struggle among the plural souls resident in the public spaces of the EU – is not something that the EU itself as a political institution can take the lead in, but rather this falls to European civil society, in which of course, Europe’s faith communities play a crucial part.

To develop this point about civil society, let me quote again some valuable words from the Reflection Group and then draw some implications for Christian witness. They write this:

“Europe itself is far more than a political construct. It is a complex – a “culture” – of institutions, ideas and expectations, habits and feelings, moods, memories and prospects that form a “glue” binding Europeans together – and all these are a foundation on which a political construction must rest. This complex – we can speak of it as European civil society – is at the heart of political identity. It defines the conditions of successful European politics, and also the limits of state and political intervention. In order to foster the cohesion necessary for political unity, European politics must thus support the emergence and development of a civil society in Europe.”

The authors also specifically endorse a positive role for religion in this regard. ‘The presence of religion in the public sphere cannot be reduced to the public role of the churches or to the societal relevance of explicitly religious views. Religions have long been an inseparable component of the various cultures of Europe. They are active “under the surface” of the political and state institutions; they also have an effect on society and individuals’.

And while warning against the risks of some kinds of public religion, they urge that:

‘The community-fostering power of Europe’s religious faiths should be supported and deployed on behalf of the cohesion of the new Europe’.

They perhaps should have added too, that religion might not always add to cohesion. Prophetic religion might sometimes need to disrupt it too, when the EU breaches its own core commitments to justice, peace, solidarity and freedom.

Christians should take up this invitation enthusiastically, confidently seizing the openings available in European civil society to commend their own distinctive insights on the purposes and policies of the EU. Since the Treaty of Lisbon, the door is officially open to this. Article 17 provides for a ‘regular, open and transparent dialogue’ of the EU with religious and philosophical associations. Christian churches and civil society organisations are already well engaged in that dialogue and they should seek new ways to do so. But beyond this elite level there are many other places at which they can exercise direct or indirect formative political influence on the EU and they should engages in those up too. As they do so, they should keep two goals in mind.

First, they should be prepared to address the full range of the Union’s substantive policy concerns and not only those that directly impinge upon the churches’ own interests or that immediately happen to resonate with their own supporters, such as family, gender and sexual ethics, education or medical and bio-ethics, vitally important though those are. In fact from the earliest interactions with EU bodies, churches have indeed taken up a remarkably wide range of issues, and they should continue to do so: the refugee crisis, environmental concerns, religious freedom abroad and at home, and many more. Each individual, church and organisation can of course only do what they can in the spaces and with the resources available to them. Second, wherever possible they should seek to work ecumenically. The forces of secularization and the many opponents ranged against Christianity across European civil society, and indeed within EU institutions, mean that Christians simply cannot afford the luxury or remaining in the ecclesial silos or, worse, working against each other politically. They should also where possible work with other faith communities on common objectives.

As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has said, often we make more progress working ‘side by side’ on practical concerns than talking ‘face to face’ across faith traditions. Much good ecumenical cooperation already happens but there is room for more. We cannot wait for agreement on religious doctrines before exploring avenues of practical cooperation. The State of Europe Forum exists to allow exactly for this. I commend its work and I pray it will inspire many other such initiatives across Europe.