Internal staff documents outlining procedural guidelines rarely make international headlines, but in this case they have.
Last week, the European Commissioner for Equality, Helena Dalli, became the focus of considerable anger and not a little ridicule over a working document outlining communication guidelines for staff.
The guidelines were initially leaked and then swiftly withdrawn.
Explaining this withdrawal, the commissioner argued that the purpose of the internal guidelines was “to illustrate the diversity of European culture and showcase the inclusive nature of the European Commission towards all walks of life and beliefs of European citizens”.
In normal circumstances, such a mundane, even bland statement from the commission would be a cause for yawning and shoulder shrugging.
But in charged political times, the draft guidelines were seized upon politically to attack the commissioner herself but more importantly, an assumed underlying EU agenda to ‘impose’ a secularist and cultural uniformity on all of us.
According to most popular critics, Christmas and its Christian pedigree was to be downgraded if not actually cancelled.
Our common European heritage and way of life were to be denied, with everyone about to be instructed to embrace a dreaded (vaguely ‘leftist’) political correctness. Common terms such as ‘ladies and gentlemen' were to be banned while familiar ‘European’ names would be replaced.
According to a badly informed Pope Francis, the guidelines smacked of Bonapartism, Nazi and communist dictatorship and ‘ideological colonisation
There was much more to the document, as shown by a quick scan of the voluminous commentary even in this newspaper alone.
However, according to a badly informed Pope Francis, the guidelines smacked of Bonapartism, Nazi and communist dictatorship and ‘ideological colonisation’.
The French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen predictably warned “these technocrats show their real face: that of an enemy to our identities, our roots, our traditions”.
The inference is clear. Such guidelines represented but the tip of a nefarious iceberg with much more to follow. Heady stuff for a set of internal guidelines on language.
The commissioner and her officials deserve to be criticised on at least two levels. Firstly, for clumsily blundering into a well-flagged ideological minefield thereby offering hostages to fortune to those with many agendas.
Secondly, the guidelines themselves crossed a line between what is simple common sense and what might rightly be considered none of the commission’s business.
What is commission business is the fact that diversity and pluralism, and a rejection of discrimination based on ethnicity, gender orientation or religion, are foundation stones of the European project.
So too is inclusivity. The essence of the intended guidelines sought to reinforce such foundations in the actual, day-to-day practice of the commission and its staff. This should not properly become a focus for ire and ridicule.
As this furore has illustrated clearly, there are indeed many threats and challenges faced by Europe and Europeans. But frankly, they do not arise from the draft guidelines or from similar activities or even from ‘political correctness’.
Nor in this case, do they come from the viewpoint or behaviour of the commissioner.
They are more likely to be found in far more significant political, cultural, media and commercial agendas of those opposed to the European project and its commitment to mutual respect and plurality.
So life as we know it, and certainly Christmas as we know it, is not in imminent danger from the commission or the commissioner, or from the heightened mindfulness of diversity with which commission staff were advised to address audiences.
As would have happened anyway, we can continue to greet each other as we have always done, with, hopefully, the mutual respect and tolerance that lie at the heart of our European values.