Prominent Europeans stress Christian roots of EU

Twenty-two prominent Europeans, including former presidents, prime ministers and Nobel Prize winners, urged the European Union yesterday not to ignore the continent's Christian roots in drawing up its new constitution.

The group, including former presidents Richard Weizsaecker of Germany, Portugal's Mario Soares and Arpad Goncz of Hungary, said Christianity had made a major contribution to Europe's ideals of human rights and tolerance among different countries.

In a veiled slap at France, the group - made up of Christians and Jews from across the political spectrum - criticised "a narrowly secularist vision of European societies" and the "insistence on an exclusive model."

France has staunchly opposed any reference to religion in the EU constitution treaty due to be decided in December. Spain, Poland, Portugal, Ireland, Malta, Slovakia, Lithuania and the Czech Republic support one and Pope John Paul has waged a campaign to have Christianity mentioned in the document.

"The question of religion is central because Christianity is at the root of the fundamental notion of the person in Europe," the signatories wrote in a statement published in the Paris daily Le Monde.

They did not explicitly demand a reference to religion but argued that Christianity was at the core of Europe's common identity.

"Faith has profoundly shaped the European conscience. It has also participated in confrontations," they wrote, alluding to the religious wars between Catholics and Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries.

One of Europe's defining traits, they argued, was "the flexible separation between the political and the religious" that had emerged from that religious struggle.

"This separation has created a permanent dialogue which is now part of our common heritage," they wrote. Europe therefore had a double heritage of humanist and Christian values which they described as "inseparable."

Apart from the three ex-presidents, the signatories included former prime ministers Raymond Barre of France, Emilio Colombo of Italy, Greece's Constatine Mitsotakis and Austria's former Chancellor Franz Vranitzsky.

The Nobel Prize winners were Hungarian novelist Imre Kertesz and Italian physicist Carlo Rubbio.