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05 August 2009
The EU should win some sort of booby-prize for shooting itself in the foot. No sooner has it insisted to the Irish people that it has no interest in shaping our social and moral laws, than it proposes an equality directive which is so far-reaching that the Catholic Bishops have branded it “an instrument of oppression”.
As was widely reported, the Bishops of England, Wales and Scotland denounced the European Commission's planned Equal Treatment Directive as "wholly unacceptable" because, they said, it would force Christians to act against their consciences.
The directive is aimed at harmonising equality legislation and enforcing a ban right across the EU on discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation, age, religious belief and disability. While previous directives have concentrated on employment, this directive plans to go further – a primary example of the sort of competence creep beloved by EU institutions.
The Catholic bishops say the directive will have the result of sharply curtailing the rights of religious liberty and freedom of expression. Most likely. The EU seems set on an aggressive collision course with freedom of religious expression. It’s not even a matter of respecting Europe’s Christian heritage, because respect doesn’t feature in such a hostile approach. Rather it’s about suppression of whatever traditions and beliefs the EU Commission would rather see banished from their ideal federal super-state.
Monsignor Andrew Summersgill, the general secretary of the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, pointed out that the European Parliament voted in favour of the proposed directive in April but MEPs put forward changes to the text to reduce protection for churches and faith schools. They also recommend deleting an assurance that the directive did not apply to national laws on marital status or abortion. The EU council will now consider whether to adopt, amend or reject the directive.
At the heart of this, of course, is the need for control. To build a United States of Europe the EU needs to seize whatever sovereignty its member states still has left. For Ireland, that matters a great deal since our Constitution makes the people sovereign and protects our rights and freedoms. Lisbon will deprive us of that constitutional protection and of the right to decide on religious freedom of expression and a great many other matters.
Niamh Uí Bhriain
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