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March1992): ‘‘Our ecumenical model of unity within peaceful diversity could be a gift to the
European Community.’’
By their acts and words, European church organizations act much like secular lobbies, which
explains the worldly character of their initiatives in mobilizing support. However, by appealing to
notions of cultural heritage ]as well as their anthropological concerns, the transcendent values
which they defend can be used to justify identity-driven and normative attempts to reconquer the
European public space.
II. European Institutions in Search of Meaning
European institutions are also torn between immanence and a search for meaning which can lead
to a recycling of religious references in the political field.
The European Union as an Archetype of Immanence in Politics
According to Gauchet, the EU is the most complete example of a minimalist and managerial state
that typifies politics in modernity. In Brussels, a bureaucratic managerial concern gives way to a
teleological ambition to lead the people. The obsession with detail in certain European directives
sometimes approaches the ridiculous. What is more, the EU’s political imaginary is one of trade,
free movement, of a market without borders: in other words, it is the incarnation of a depoliticized,
horizontal political space. On the contrary, the political imaginary of the nation state strikes one as
the sacralization, by means of the transfer of religious transcendence. Its imagery is one of
verticality and centrality (Michel, 1994) by means of the afirmation of sovereignty, of the primacy
of the state, of the border and of the rootedness of territory.
‘‘To Give Europe a Soul’’: The Project of Jacques Delors
What results is a deficit which is at once democratic and symbolic (Wiegel,2005) in the EU’s
institutionalized organization. It is this deficit which is at the origin of the desire, formulated by
the Commission President, for an informal dialogue which pays heed to religious traditions and
secular humanism.The starting point for relations between the European Commission and religions
can be traced to a speech given by Jacques Delors to Protestant church officials in 1992: ‘‘If, in
the next ten years, we have not managed to give a momentum, a meaning, a soul to Europe, we
will have lost the game.’’ The fall of the Berlin Wall and the relaunching of the European project
yield the feeling that there is a qualitative change in the European construction: there is a passage
from a predominantly economic and technique-driven union to a political union more concerned
with citizen related, social and ethical questions. The appeal to religions is justified by a need to
give meaning to the European project by means of a reflection upon the roots of European
identity. Religions are also called upon as important societal authorities and opinion leaders, given
their role in training and denominational media, well suited to the development of a Europhile
sentiment in both current and potential member states. One must note that this appeal to religions
coincides with the collapse of the communist utopia, a secular religion which offered to humanity
a horizon of profane transcendence. The Forward Studies Unit (FSU), now known as the Board of
European Policy Advisors (BEPA), has put in place informal meetings with representatives of
Catholic and Protestant European churches, of other main religious traditions, and of secular
humanism. These encounters address ethical and political questions. The now-disbanded
programme ‘‘A Soul for Europe’’, financed, by preference, ecumenical, inter-religious and
multinational meetings in order to give an ethical meaning to the European construction. The
shock of 9/11 has led to an overhaul of the dialogue between the EU and religions. By means of
inter-religious meetings, the Commission presidency seeks to promote dialogue among
civilizations in order to avoid Huntington’s unhappy prophecy of an irremediable ‘‘clash of
civilizations’’. A never larger number of religious leaders have been invited, but the debate has
lost some of its substance.
Pluralism and Neutrality
The appeal to religious references and the welcoming of religious leaders by European authorities
does not, however, signify a desecularization of politics because these meetings take place within