http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/10/30/do3001.xml
Blair has signed us up to the sharia of Euro-enthusiasts
By Charles Moore
(Filed: 30/10/2004)
My first reaction, on hearing that Rocco Buttiglione was considered
unfit to be the EU Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner because he
follows Roman Catholic teaching on sexual matters, was anger. The
Treaty of Rome, largely conceived by three Catholics � De Gasperi,
Schuman and Adenauer � was signed at the heart of Western Christian
civilisation in 1957. It was intended to mend and advance that
civilisation. Yesterday, the leaders of EU member states met, again in
Rome, to sign the new European Constitution, from which all mention of
God has been excluded. Is active religious belief a disqualification
from taking part in the government of modern Europe?
My anger rose further at the astonishing virulence of an article by
Matthew Parris in The Times last week. Parris is a brilliant writer
and usually a thoughtful, humane man, but here he was beside himself.
"Kick him out," he yelled, in reference to Mr Buttiglione, and, "I
say: enough of tolerance." He said that Mr Buttiglione had "indeed
been the victim of anti-Christian discrimination, and that such
discrimination is now in order". Parris wanted people with
"anti-modern beliefs" excluded from public positions unless they
agreed not to act on such beliefs.
We have been here before. The men who first used the guillotine after
the French Revolution believed that organised religion was
anti-modern. So did Hitler. So did the Communists who ran half of
Europe from the end of the war until 1989. There are many million
people alive today who experienced "modern" government and would not
care to return to it. They are also, unfortunately, many million
people who experienced it and, as a result, are dead. I notice that
two of the commissioners presented to the European Parliament at the
same time as Mr Buttiglione were once active in Communist government
in their countries. The parliament approved them.
But perhaps anger is misplaced. This is partly because Mr Buttiglione,
whose party helps deliver support from Sicily for Silvio Berlusconi's
unstable coalition, may well prove to be what the hymn calls a "frail
earthen vessel". There is some funny politics in here. There is also
some funny theology. Mr Buttiglione says that homosexuality is a sin.
The Catholic Church does not teach this, and never has. One's sexual
orientation, it says, is not a moral question. The moral question is
people's sexual acts, and the Church maintains the view that marriage
between a man and woman is the sole right context for sex. Parris is
furious because, he says, the Church teaches that homosexuals are
sinners. That's misleading. It (and every other church) teaches that
every human being is a sinner, by definition. This may be even less
palatable to many, but there it is. I feel that Mr Buttiglione
generated more heat than light on the subject.
The main reason, though, for refusing to get angry is the job itself,
the one that Mr Buttiglione didn't get. He was going to be Justice and
Home Affairs Commissioner, in charge of civil liberties. Why do we
think that the European Commission should be in charge of our justice
and our home affairs? Why does the job exist?
Like most things in the EU, it has crept up on us. For years, the EU
was only an "economic community". Justice and home affairs first
feature in EU treaties with Maastricht in 1991, and have been moving
forward ever since. Now we have ideas such as the common European
arrest warrant and a common asylum policy. We are also moving towards
a pan-European prosecuting magistracy and the granting of executive
powers to Europol, which is supposed to be no more than a body for
police co-operation, rather than a European police force.
Most of these powers, in fact, are not in the treaties � they are
simply pushed forward on the basis of summit communiqu�s and suchlike.
But they will be cemented by the European Constitution, and the
Charter of Fundamental Rights contained within it. When the European
Parliament recently interviewed all 25 potential commissioners, it
asked each whether he or she would feel free to implement their bits
of the European Constitution now, without waiting for the national
referendums and ratifications on the subject. Only six out of the 25
said they should wait. One of the 19 who wanted to go ahead without
democratic approval was Mr Buttiglione.
The Charter of Fundamental Rights is an amazing document. It veers
between the high generality � "spiritual and moral heritage",
"dignity, freedom, equality and solidarity" � and the weirdly
specific: "Everyone has the right of access to a free placement
service." It says that trade unions must be consulted by employers.
Everyone has a right to a "high level" of this and that � healthcare,
environmental protection, ciabatta, whatever.
The key point about the Charter is not so much what it says, as how it
will be implemented. It will give the European Court a much wider
basis for making decisions. Until recently, most European decisions
have been economic. Now they will be cultural. This is about what sort
of lives we should lead, and it gives legal authority to European
judges and bureaucrats to tell us how to lead them.
Since the European Court is staffed only by judges who believe in
ever-closer European integration, it will make its decisions in that
light. The constitution is the sharia of the Euro-enthusiasts.
To be sure, the judges' world-view is politically correct. They are
part of the enormous international industry of "human rights", which
obsesses about wheelchair access but not about abortion, about
asbestos but not pornography. They like positive discrimination (the
charter explicitly says so), dislike national independence. With the
vast new scope granted them under the charter and the constitution,
they will surely act like the Warren Supreme Court in the United
States in the 1960s and 1970s, pushing through an essentially
political agenda under a legal guise.
But the real objection to all this is not that what the court wants is
wrong. It is that it shouldn't possess such powers. The US Supreme
Court is a body set up by a single nation and appointed by the elected
president of the nation, with the approval of Congress. It has
properly granted authority � the right, as it were, to be wrong. The
European Court should have no such right because it arises out of no
such nation, with no such consent. So we should resist it, whether its
judges adhere to the Sermon on the Mount, the Koran or the gospel
according to Matrix Chambers. But yesterday in Rome, Mr Blair signed
up to its vast new power.
So, as a Christian, I feel relief that the judges and officials
imposing this rule on us will not be acting in the name of my beliefs.
The enemy is in plain view. Some regret that God has been given no
place in the European Constitution, but I have a lot of respect for
Him, and my guess is that He will be able to get over the disappointment.
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