EUROPEAN COMMISSION
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José Manuel Durão Barroso
President of the European Commission
Remarks by President Barroso at the 10th High Level
meeting of religious leaders
Press conference
Brussels, 10 June 2014
Good afternoon,
Today, I am delighted to meet for the 10th time - together with European Council
President Van Rompuy and Vice President Surján of the European Parliament - eminent
religious leaders here at the Commission headquarters.
We have with us distinguished dignitaries from the Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu,
Sikh and Mormon churches and communities.
Let me start by making two important announcements:
Today, all participants have agreed a joint statement on the case of Ms Meriam Yahya
Ibrahim in Sudan, a Christian woman who has been sentenced to death on charges of
apostasy and adultery. We call upon the responsible Sudanese authorities and appeal
courts to revoke this inhumane verdict and release Ms Meriam with the utmost urgency.
We welcome the fact that the Court of Appeal has meanwhile accepted the appeal and
demand the government to repeal any legal provisions that penalize or discriminate
against individuals for having or changing a religion or belief or for inducing others to
change a religion or belief.
Freedom of religion and belief is a universal human right that needs to be protected
everywhere and for everyone. Freedom of religion includes the right to have a religion,
to change it and not to adhere to any religion.
To reiterate our strong commitment, the European Union in June 2013 adopted
Guidelines on freedom of religion and belief.
I also would like to inform you that this morning we observed a minute of silence paying
tribute to the victims of the recent murderous attack in the Jewish museum here in
Brussels.
Churches and religious communities have an important contribution to make to ensure
that the dignity of the human being is respected and promoted. They can help to reach
out to each-other, show solidarity and avoid that differences turn into hatred, murder
and conflict.
And they inspire political action that helps to improve the lives of our citizens. I am
convinced: the active involvement of Churches and religious communities can contribute
decisively to the ongoing reflections on the future of Europe. That is why I initiated these
high-level meetings ten years ago, even before the Lisbon Treaty established the
obligation for the European institutions to engage with religious communities, and I trust
they will be a welcome and fruitful platform in the future.
SPEECH/14/446
Debating about the future of Europe was precisely the aim of today's meeting. We
cannot yet draw conclusions, as our meeting will continue after this press moment
through a working lunch, so what I am going to say can't be seen as conclusions. By the
way, we want to keep these meetings quite informal, where we can, apart from formal
declarations like the one I've already mentioned, keep a plurality of views, but let me,
very spontaneously, tell you about some of the points we already discussed this morning
regarding Europe:
Firstly, all of us are convinced that we are in a very important point now. Many
participants discussed also the outcome of the European elections. And most of the
participants linked these elections to the current moments of difficulties that Europe is
now experiencing, namely from an economic and social point of view.
And in most comments it was underlined the importance of values. Values like peace –
of course, it is a foundation principle of our union - but also of social cohesion, solidarity
and justice. And this was highlighted as one of the most important issues to which the
European Union should not only respond but be appearing as responding, because that
was certainly one of the most important concerns in our public.
We have also seen – at least most of those who spoke – how important it is at the same
time to fight extremism, be it religious intégrisme or fundamentalism but also racism.
And we have highlighted the importance to be vigilant to all attempts to come to
extremist positions against each other and namely against the values that are so
important in the European Union. We took stock of the recent tendencies that we are
seeing in some parts of our societies and that in fact are putting in question relations
between people, where the other is perceived as the enemy, and precisely the need to
combat with firmness all forms of discrimination against, for instance, the Jewish
communities - the recent attacks here in Brussels demonstrate how serious the situation
is - but also against all kinds of discrimination, and the link between political extremism
and fanaticism - points made by you in this debate.
Some of you also mention the difficulties in our neighbourhood. Ukraine came also in
discussion. And we also made a point on how to engage for Europe, engaging for the
values that are so important since the founding of the European Union.
So I believe the meeting today confirmed a strong sense of common purpose: We need
to maintain and strengthen Europe as a project of peace, but also of solidarity and
democracy. European integration and democratic legitimacy have to advance in parallel,
bridging the distance between the European institutions and the citizens is critically
important.
Apart from these discussions about Europe that we are going to pursue, we also
discussed the role of the religious communities and the dimension that this can bring in
Europe and in the world. Some of us, including myself, mentioned how important it was
the meeting for prayer between Pope Francis, President Shimon Peres and President
Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday. That appears as a stark symbol that leadership and courage
are required to find peace today and that the religious message can also be a
contribution for peace. The religious communities play a very important role in the
European societies and we believe that that role can indeed match some of the concerns
that are expressed by our societies.
So in a very impressionist view, because these are still discussions in progress, I think I
have presented to you some of the points that we have started discussing today. After
these ten years of these high-level meetings of the religious leaders with the European
institutions I can tell you that this debate has proven very useful. I'm sure that whatever
the format that will be decided in the future, I think we laid down here a very important
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platform. We, the European institutions, the European Parliament, the European Council
and the European Commission.
And of course the dialogue is not only at this level. It's very important to know that it
goes at other levels. We have services that make it, we have networks of contacts. That
was highlighted by one of the interventions today, that we need to intensify this kind of
dialogue at all levels, namely at the local level, recognising the principle of subsidiarity.
But at this level and in this format it is certainly a contribution to deepen the reflection
and I hope that our successors will continue this tradition because it has been proven
very useful. All those that have participated until now have precisely highlighted the
benefits that can derive from this open, sincere debate.
I give now the floor to the President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy.
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