Category Archives: European Consciousness

Sylvie Goulard - image: ALDE (cc: by-nc-sa)

Telephone Interview on the Euro Crisis
Sylvie Goulard MEP, with Frank Turner SJ: February 6, 2012

There has been much recent commentary about the possibility that the Euro might disappear. Even if that danger has receded, the fragility of the Euro is newly evident. In the context of the financial crisis, how would you evaluate the current risk to the Euro?

Until the end of 2011 people were genuinely apprehensive. What has become clear since then is that there is the political will to ensure that the Euro will not fail. The tools for its effective management are still lacking, in part, and we can expect further turbulence. But the EU will simply not allow the Euro to fail. Continue reading →

Book cover - image: Verlag Peter Lang

Dans l’union européenne tout projet de législation doit être examiné s’il correspond au principe de proportionnalité. Ce principe de proportionnalité est ici interprété comme le principe fondamental de l’éthique. Il demande de minimiser les dommages ou charges pour qui que ce soit. Sont irresponsables toutes les actions qui, étant objectivement contreproductives sous un regard universalisant, manquent de proportionnalité. Ce principe est alors appliqué aux grands domaines de l’Union européenne elle-même: l’économie et les finances, la sécurité et la défense, l’environnement naturel, la démocratie participative, la solidarité. On plaide pour une union plus cohérente. La souveraineté doit être exercée plus en commun, et la citoyenneté européenne avec ces droits de participation demande d’être promue davantage.

Israeli and Palestinian flags - image: wikimedia

Talk given at the Chapel of the Resurrection, Brussels

Not only is this issue highly complicated, in my experience it is almost unique. On other issues, people can be tentative, can admit ignorance. On this, almost everyone has a strong opinion. Conflicting views are held passionately by the parties involved, especially since the different peoples of this region have endured terrible suffering.  One can scarcely hope to be free from all distortion, even by the very choice of what to mention and what to leave out.

I want to stress also that my own direct experience is both very limited, and out-of-date: I speak neither Hebrew nor Arabic. I made about 8 visits over 5 years, up to 2004. (Explain my then role – vis-a-vis CBCEW and then Patriarch Sabbah, arranging conferences, and with the bishops visiting the two presidents – Moshe Katsav, now in prison, and Yasser Arafat.) I knew Jerusalem, but not the secular Israel of Tel Aviv and the northern coast. When I was last there, the Separation Wall had not yet been completed. In terms of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, I visited Bethlehem often, Ramallah a few times, Gaza twice. I continue to follow the issues, but necessarily at a distance. Continue reading →

Car in snow - image: cory.cousins (cc: by-nc-nd)

En ce début d’année 2011, l’Europe ressemble à ces puissants véhicules mal équipés qui, malgré le ronflement de leurs moteurs, sont condamnés à faire du surplace quand les routes sont trop enneigées. Notre continent en effet ne parvient pas à retrouver la confiance des marchés et la ferveur des opinions publiques; du coup il se trouve devant un certain nombre d’obstacles que ses dirigeants ne parviennent pas à franchir. Continue reading →