European Christian Political Movement

Statement on the leader of the Moldovan Christian-Democrats, Iurie Rosca.

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:55:08 +0100

The European Christian Political Movement (ECPM) is concerned about the latest proceedings against the leader of the Moldovan Christian-Democrats, Iurie Rosca.

Moldovan prosecutors have reopened two criminal cases that date from 2002 when the Opposition leader Iurie Rosca was active during peaceful antigovernment demonstrations. These protests were aimed against the antidemocratic practices of the former ruling communist Party in Moldova.

Due to the intervention of the Council of Europe and the European Parliament, the persecutions were renounced and the criminal cases against leaders of the opposition in Moldova were dropped. Now again cases against the leader of the PPCD were reopened.

The ECPM hopes that this case is not brought up based on political motives and that the Moldovan government will work towards a more democratic and prosperous society based on the values which the ECPM and the European Union stand for: justice, freedom, democracy, peace and reconciliation.

We regard the present situation as a good test to see if we can count on the good faith and willingness of the new government of Moldova that these cases are dealt by the responsible institutions with discernment, care, objectiveness and accuracy and not guided by political motives. Independency of justice in Moldova is of utmost importance, not only regarding to these cases, but also in the long road that is ahead in regaining the trust both in the governmental institutes as well as in an independent juridical system.

ECPM regards Moldovan Christian-Democrats as an important factor in developing and promoting Christian-Democratic values in Moldova and Eastern Europe and because of this, we will follow and monitor this situation closely to assure that the main principles of righteousness and justice will prevail.

ECPM receives official status from the European Parliament

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 12:44:29 +0100

The European Christian Political Movement (ECPM) has been granted an official status at the European level by the European Parliament. This official recognition means that the ECPM will receive funding from the European Parliament. With this funding the ECPM can develop into an even larger forum for Christian-democratic parties and politicians.

The organisation was officially registered in 2005 and already counts more than 20 members from more than 15 European countries. Now it has taken another step to ensure it’s further impact and growth. Chairman Peeter Võsu (Estonia) is very positive about the official status: “The ECPM meets all the requirements for this status and this clearly shows the growing relevance of our movement.”

With the official status and the funding from Brussels the ECPM aims to become more visible in European politics and to become active in the European political debates. With its distinctive Christian-democratic profile, the ECPM is certain that it can offer constructive new ideas for the future of Europe.

The European Christian Political Movement has been growing very rapidly in the last few years. The main reason for this growth is clear, according to Võsu: “We could never have grown so fast if there was not such a need in European countries for our ideas, it is clear that many people in Europe are convinced that Christian values matter!”

Although the ECPM is not a group in the European Parliament, it is now one of the ten organisations that have been awarded this special status. Other organisations that have this status include the European People’s Party (EPP) and the Party of European Socialists (PES).

“The recognition by the European Parliament is very interesting for the dynamics in European politics,” according to vice-chairman Kris Vleugels (Belgium). He claims that the ECPM is really unique because the European Christian Political Movement is not a competitor to any European group in the European Parliament. “Instead,” Vleugels says, “the ECPM wants to cooperate with all parties and politicians who share our values!”

This position points out the unique philosophy of the organisation; uniting parties and politicians around Christian values, regardless of party colours. “This way of thinking opens many opportunities for constructive cooperation in national and European politics which will benefit the people of Europe” concludes Peeter Võsu.

The ECPM will celebrate this milestone during the next Members Congress that will take place in Brussels in the end of May.

For more information contact Guido van Beusekom (general-secretary): office@ecpm.info

Christians in Politics Portal

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:22:11 +0100

The Christians in Politics Portal is a new website that was launched to increase discussion on Christian politics all over the world. Many (associate) members of the ECPM have contributed to this portal and we hope that it will become a success.

As we have already seen within our own movement, a lot of problems that we face in either East or West, show many similarities. We think that the solutions to these problems may also have many similarities and this is why a portal can make a big impact.

By staying in contact with Christian politicians from all over the world we can inspire and support each other by sharing our knowledge on political thought and political practice. Therefore, Christians in Politics Portal, also depends on your contribution: If you have any experience on Christian political thought or practice, you are warmly invited to share this with others on www.cpportal.org.

In the coming days, the Christians in Politics Portal will also publish an article on International Law written by ECPM board member Vladimir Plamadeala from Moldova.

The best wishes for 2010!

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 14:19:56 +0100

The ECPM board and staff wish you a fruitful & blessed 2010!

We hope that we will meet you at one of the many ECPM activities that are planned for this year. For our organisation 2010 will be an exciting new year in which we hope that we can continue to grow as we did in the past years. Since our first member congress took place at the end of 2005 (November/December) we can look back on 5 very blessed years for our movement.

Of course, 2010 is also a very exciting year for the global economy. Have we seen the worst of the crisis and will things imporve in 2010 or will there be a fallback this year?

Many parts of Europe are currently surprised by very cold weather. It is fair to expect that the weather and climate, combined with (cleaner) energy sources will continue to be a big issue in 2010 as well.

In both these issues, and various other ones, Christian values and Christian-democratic thought are very relevant for a sustainable feature for Europe and the world. We hope that, together with you, we can increase the impact of these values in the global politics of 2010!

Happy Christmas with Christ

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 15:41:13 +0100

With Christmas we celebrate the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. God’s long term plan to give us eternal life and fellowship with him was fulfilled in it. We can see God’s heart and his commitment to his creation in this act. It gives us security and peace because we do not need to doubt about our relationship with the Lord.

In the current western society, with a long history of celebrating Christmas, we need to express the simple truth about Christmas again that we do it because of the birth of our Lord. We all receive multitudes of messages about Christmas gifts, concerts, greetings, etc. It is easy to forget about the real content of Christmas in the middle of the communication noise. The truth about Christmas is the most important reason for celebrating and I hope that you will all be in the situation that you can celebrate this with the people who are dearest to you.

Our goal as Christians in politics in Europe is to bring God back to our society. Although we as individuals need God in our personal lives, we are also social beings and we need God as the Lord over our society. Neither our own life, the church nor the state can thrive without His blessing.

In spite of the high development of the science and extraordinary knowledge about economy and finances we have experienced deep economic problems lately. Most of the problems have their roots in our moral behavior and distancing from God. This was also one of the conclusions that we made on our last member congress in Bern; the crisis did not start as an economic one, but as a moral one.

Speaking about the ECPM, I am most grateful that our movement continues to grow and I see this as a blessing from the Lord. We grew in members and more and more people recognize the unique status of our organization. In September there was the 2^nd meeting of the Eastern European Bureau of Christian Democratic parties, it is wonderful to see how these parties, who are also ECPM members, continue in supporting each other on various issues.

I am confident that we, as members and associates of the ECPM, can make a new step in 2010 in advancing Christian values in European politics.

Of course, not everything is going as we would like. The pressure put on our friends of the Belarusian Christian Democrats is an issue that concerns us all. Not only do they not have the freedom to officially register their own party, there is also a lack of freedom of religion for many churches in Belarus. I hope that 2010 will be the year that we can remember as the year of their official registration as a party.

Yet, if we look at the coming days, I wish that we may have the wisdom to turn our eyes more often to the Lord this Christmas time. If we seek first the Kingdom of God then he will bless us and give us wisdom to make right decisions in our highly responsible activities. Christmas is a good time to celebrate, to focus on the Lord and to be thankful for all that He did.

I wish you, on behalf of the ECPM board and staff, a peaceful Christmas and blessed New Year!

Peeter Vosu
Chairman ECPM

ECPM supports March for Life Initiative

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 14:26:28 +0100

The European Christian Political Movement supports the March for Life Initiative. The organizers for this March come from several ideological backgrounds but they all want attention for the fact that all born and unborn infants deserve life, respect and protection.

The march will take place in Brussels on 28 March 2010. If you want more information about this initiative you can go to www.28march2010.be/splash.html.

The ECPM hopes that several of its members will be present in March to step up and defend the rights of those who are not able to defend themselves.

Andr� Rouvoet adresses European Prayer Breakfast

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:08:14 +0100

Andr� Rouvoet, Minister of Youth and Family of the Netherlands and political leader of the ChristenUnie, addressed the European Prayer Breakfast in Brussels last Wednesday. The speech was very well received by the audience according to ECPM chairman Peeter V�su and vice-chairman Kris Vleugels who attended the meeting on behalf of the European Christian Political Movement.

Below you can read the full speech of André Rouvoet.

Dear friends,

Thank you very much for the invitation to address this years European Prayer Breakfast. It’s good to be in the company of brothers and sisters in Christ, all working in different positions in the corridors of power. This is a good occasion to remind each other about the meaning of our relationship with Jesus for our personal lives and families, for our work and for the part of the world that we live in, Europe.

One of the central values of the European Union is freedom. This theme came to my mind when we celebrated the fall of the Berlin Wall last month. We all have seen the moving images of the happy crowds, pushing through the firstly opened checkpoint at Bornholmer Strasse, and of the euphoric people cutting down the hated wall. Free at last! The era of oppression was over. Many of you present here come from the former Soviet states, and know from personal experience what this meant to your people.

As for me, never in my life I saw a better illustration of the importance of freedom to the human person. And we should never forget about this.

I think however that today we also have reason to fundamentally rethink the idea of freedom. To explain this, I will make two points:

why the Western idea of freedom runs into problems
how biblical insights can help us rethink freedom

Ad 1 Why our idea of freedom runs into problems

I was intrigued by a comment of a well-known radio- and televisionhost in my country, Martin Simek. He fled from Czechoslovakia in 1968. In the Dutch newspaper NRC he wrote that when he came to the Netherlands, he expected to see happy people celebrating their free existence. But what he saw around him were ‘gloomy faces’. “As if nobody really enjoyed being free”, he wrote. “It was like they wanted more of something they already had”. The question that is still puzzling him up till today is: ”what exactly is freedom?”

This is a very good question. What is the current idea of freedom? I think the most widespread concept of freedom in our collective consciousness is the liberal idea of maximization of the individual right to do whatever you like as long as it doesn’t harm the rights of your fellow citizens. It’s what Isaiah Berlin called ‘negative liberty’: the absence of coercion.

We should affirm the good side of this idea: protection of the individual against an intervening state, and the guarantee of both political and economic freedom. Surely, this was the right answer to the threat of a dictator taking over power in the Second World War, and to the Communist regimes. It is still good news to be brought to those parts of the world where people are suffering from oppression, fear and poverty today.

However, there’s a downside to this idea of freedom. We seem to have forgotten about the purpose of it. Let me illustrate this point. On a cultural level, freedom-loving Westerners, especially the children of the cultural revolution of the sixties and seventies, seem to exaggerate freedom. This shows in the way they relate to eachother and in their lifestyle. Somebody once wrote about Western lifestyle: “we’re buying things we don't need, to impress people we don't like”. For many children of the sixties it is true what Martin Simek wrote: they walk around with gloomy faces, because they want more of what they already have.

This is not only true for the personal morale, it’s also true for our economic life on a larger scale.

It’s the exaggerated pursuit of profit and of consumption that caused the current global financial and environmental crises. I think we are all aware that these crises have very unjust consequences: those who profit the least and who are the least responsible pay the highest price, in the countries of Africa and the Asia-Pacific region, where people live in areas vulnerable to floodings or draughts. Due to carbon emissions from the wealthy West.

On the political level we see freedom is threatened by absolutization of the individual rights. For example: it’s an absolutization of the freedom of speech and expression to claim the right to insult, to hurt people in their deepest religious feelings. It is an absolutization of the right to equal treatment too forbid religious people to have organizations that hire staff which has the same faith or convictions. One would assume that these are very unliberal points of view, but in Europe as well as in my own country this debate is being initiated over and over again by liberal (or should I say: libertarian) politicians. I’m afraid this is because in fact there’s not an agenda of freedom at work here, but a secular agenda, and –consequently- an agenda of restraining religion and believers. This has little to do with freedom. This is demonstrated in the debate on whether or not religious symbols should be allowed in the public sphere.

The picture is clear: the people that came from the former Soviet-Union knew very well from what they wanted to be freed. But they came to a free world in which many people don’t seem to have a clue what to use freedom for. The liberal idea of freedom as maximizing individual rights offers only a negative concept of freedom: it leads to a sense of purposelessness. On top of that, the tendency to ban religion from the public sphere demonstrates that it’s not so freedom-loving after all. My conclusion is therefore that our understanding of freedom needs rethinking.

2. why biblical insights can help rethink the meaning of freedom

The question our Czech friend posed was: What is freedom? I think from what I’ve said just now, the more adequate question is: what is freedom for? Can we find a concept of freedom that makes us serve our economic needs instead of our greed? A freedom that makes us enjoy Creation instead of exhausting it? That makes us honour our neighbours, instead of hurting their deepest feelings? That makes us listen to the voice of minorities instead of silencing them? A freedom that defends the rights of others instead of trying to confine them?

Let us explore what we can derive from the Bible. I want to highlight two basic principles about freedom.

The first is about the purpose of freedom. We can learn from the part of Scripture that we read from Paul’s letter to the Galatians (5:13): “You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love”. The key message from this passage is: yes, a man is meant to be free, but if he really wants to enjoy it, he needs to escape from self-centeredness, and learn to live loving one another and seeking righteousness. This is the missing link, the blind spot in the widespread negative concept of freedom. This is why Western culture tends to get off the right track, and doesn’t enjoy the fruits of real freedom.

There’s a telling parallel to the fall of the Berlin Wall in the Old Testament in the story of Exodus. The Hebrew people was liberated from centuries of Egyptian slavery, and saved from Pharaohs troops through the Red Sea. But after being freed, God didn’t send them to the promised land with the message: now go, have fun and do as you like! God knew his self-centered people better than that. He gave them the Ten Commandments, to teach them about the good life. To modern ears it’s hard to understand that the law is not a moral cage full of restrictive bonds, but the path that leads to freedom.

As we read in Deuteronomy 8: “For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land”. Maybe modern ears can understand what Paul says a little further in his letter to the Galatians: “The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself." If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.”

Yes, unless we stop telling ourselves the lie that we are born to be autonomous individuals with the right to do whatever we want (a lie that justifies our self-centeredness instead of redeeming us from it), our society will not be on the road to freedom but on the road to social degradation and even planetary selfdestruction.

We know the pattern from the story of the Hebrew people: they really got of the right track and had to roam in the desert. It took them a generation to die before their children could enter the promised land. If we realize that true freedom means obeying laws, maybe we could be wiser and leave the desert more timely?

The second principle regards the role of government. In Romans 13 the authorities are called ‘servants of God’, which should be obeyed. The Bible however draws a clear line: "We must obey God rather than men!” (Acts 5:29). However important, government remains a servant. No room for totalitarianism here, and a clear hint

that the separation of Church and State is a genuine biblical insight. Government is not to guard the theological truth, but to guard justice. “Not by power, not by might but by my Spirit, says the Lord”. We don’t defend the freedom of religion and the separation of Church and State by concession, but by confession!

Let me elaborate on this. The separation of Church and state doesn’t mean that government should refrain from moral choices. In my political view government supports and protects the development and functioning of the different spheres of society according to its God given purpose. Freedom of society will be guaranteed best when the government refrains from interfering in societal spheres. Only if people act against the norm of public justice, government should not hesitate to intervene in the sovereignty of a sphere. For example: limitless bonuses to executives that stimulates irresponsible risk-taking is destabilising the financial system and thus public justice is at stake: so regulation is a good thing. Another example: the violence against children is definitely against the norm of public justice, so the authorities should intervene in the family life.

Of course this implies that government can never be morally indifferent or neutral. And exactly because of this view Christian politics is often met by angry responses. When my own political party, the Christian Union, became part of the Dutch cabinet, people were talking as if a small fundamentalist minority was going to impose its morality on the nation, and was severely going to restrict the freedom of our society. At first this struck me as a strange thing, as I can think of many reasons why a secular party coming to power might mean a greater threat to freedom than a Christian party, as I already explained.

Still, these negative reactions should make us look at ourselves too. We should be aware that our message is complex. As followers of Jesus we have learned the lesson that freedom is not the same as lifting the limits, and that on the contrary, freedom is realized through respecting limits. But this is not obvious to everybody.

Nowadays however, there are many examples that might illustrate the point. Take sexual liberty: in the Netherlands as well as elsewhere in Europe young people grow up with a lot of individual freedom on this theme. But as a consequence, 25% of the Dutch young women between 15 and 24 years old say to have experienced coerced sexual violence. The current Dutch government has now decided to stimulate boys to behave more responsibly.

Or take the use of alcohol as an example: we grant our young children lots of freedom, but as a consequence the drinking behaviour of 22% of the young Dutch people between 16 and 24 years old is called ‘problematic’, which means they are damaging their brain development. The current Dutch cabinet is now preparing a ban for children up to 16 years old to have alcoholics drinks with them.

This illustrates the point Paul makes in Galatians 5 that if we pursuit freedom without direction or limits, people may get trapped under a new ‘yoke of slavery’.

Therefore it is not a contradiction when a government puts limits to freedom, because in the end it will lead to more freedom. True freedom is obeying laws. We are not advocating bans and prohibitions for the sake of hindering people, but because it is our conviction that in the end it is a path to real freedom. Like the Ten commandments were given to the people of Israel as a way to enjoy ‘the good life’ in the promised land.

It is a pity that the Bible as the book of Christianity does not immediately remind people of this good life of real freedom and wellbeing. Many Europeans tend to think of faith as system of moral restrictions.

This is a problem, because it is an obstacle for communicating the most important message about freedom the world needs to hear. We need to take this problem seriously if we want to tackle it properly.

From my own experience, there are two important factors that can improve our message coming through. The first is to always put the interest of the other in the first place. Our voice in the public arena should be rather one of compassion than of judgment. It’s not our own interests we’re serving. We have to make very clear why our society will be better off if our ideas and proposals would be implemented. To illustrate that this can work, I can refer to many policy ideas of my own party that through the years gained public support and have now become cabinet policy.

The second is that in our personal lives we should live recognizably as people who are freed from self-centeredness. Only than we can be what Paul calls ‘living letters’, telling others about the love of God, and the freedom that living in relationship with Him brings. In our way of interacting with other people, the way we argue with them, the way we make up with them, the way we show attention for what’s in their hearts and minds, the way we talk about other people should all reflect the love of our Father.

Last year I quoted from a song of Amy Grant, called ‘My fathers eyes’. It’s about the fact that when a child resembles its father, people will say: “You’ve got your fathers’ eyes!”. It’s my deep wish that the people we meet look at us and say: “You’ve got your Fathers’ eyes!”

It is my wish that in this way you and me, as followers of Jesus, can start a conversation about ‘real freedom’ for Europe. So that we can ignite a longing in the hearts of people for the fullness of life. As it was meant from the beginning of time, and as it will one day be restored. As we read from Galatians 5:1: “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.”

People on photo (from left to right): Andre Rouvoet (Minister of Youth and Family) , Alojz Peterle (MEP), Peter van Dalen (MEP ChristenUnie), Peeter Võsu (chairman ECPM).

ECPM congratulates Belgian PM Herman van Rompuy with nomination for European Council presidency

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:33:37 +0100

The ECPM congratulates Belgian Prime Minister Herman van Rompuy with his nomination as first permanent president of the European Council. The ECPM is glad that a Christian-democrat will hold this office in the following years. Mr. van Rompuy is appraised for his principled and calm handling of the political situation in Belgium. As writer he has also expressed his belief in Christian-democracy that is rooted in Christian faith and in his publications he applied this convincingly to actual core causes of problems in today's Europe. In his political career he showed that Christian-democracy can be a political concept that works and solves the problems of a nation. The ECPM is convinced that the European Council made the right choice that will help Europe forward.

The ECPM also congratulates Commissioner Catherine Ashton with her nomination as high representative for the foreign policy of the EU. The ECPM hopes that both she and mr. van Rompuy will represent the core values of Europe on the global stage and work together for freedom, democracy, peace and sustainability in Europe and the world.

Belarusian Christian Democracy party to hold its second founding convention

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:26:46 +0100

The leadership of the Belarusian Christian Democracy party received denials to their requests for renting premises from almost every single official body they had applied to. Only the last from 11 different institutions, which received the BCD request, the directors of the Small Hall of the Palace of Republic haven't replied yet and said they will do so send in written form within 30 days after the application.

It is worth mentioning that BCD sent the request for renting premises to Minsk Tractor Plant, Minsk Automobile plant, “Sukno” factory and some other places. It is worth reminding that the Belarusian Ministry of Justice denied registration for the party after its first Founding Convention in February, 2009.

The BCD leader Paval Sieviarynets commented on the situation:

“If the authorities do not grant us a right to rent premises for the Founding Convention on October, 31 we will hold our Convention in front of the Presidential Administration – at Kastrychnitskaya Square. We ask delegates, our guests and all Christians and all not indifferent people support us under the motto “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty”.

Belarusian Christian Democracy party is ready to hold its Founding Convention on the street. I think that in the looming prospect of the EU decision on sanctions against top Belarusian officials, which is due to be made on November 16, 2009, our Founding Convention on the street will be a good illustration of so-called “liberalization”.

Foreign guests and ambassadors will be also invited to take part in the Convention outdoors.

It is expected that 300 delegates and about 400 guests will take part in the event. If the Founding Convention is to be held at Kastrychnitskaya Square then there will not be restrictions on number of participants and, as a result, more people will be able to attend the event.”

European Christian Democratic Movement today. From values to practice

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:25:01 +0200

The ECPM was very happy to be present at the second conference of Christian democrats of Eastern Europe.

This second conference of Christian democrats of Eastern Europe organized by the Christian Democratic Union of Armenia, Christian Union of the Netherlands, European Christian Political Movement, Eastern European Bureau of Christian Democratic Parties, Christian Democratic Union of Nagorno Karabakh and Christian Peoples’ Unity of Armenia was held on September 25-26 in Sevan, Armenia.

The representatives of Christian Democratic Parties and organizations from 8 countries such as Moldova, Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, the Netherlands, Armenia and not recognized Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh gathered around the topic: “European Democratic Movement today. From Values to practice”. Among guests were the ambassadors and the representatives of different NGOs.

The Conference was held in Sevan in Hotel Complex “Harsnakar” (Sevan).

By means of an official greeting, the chairman of the ECPM, Mr Peeter Vosu wished all participants a blessed meeting and stated the following about the importance of Christian democrats in politics:

We need Christians in European politics. Only politicians with strong Christian identity can preserve and advance Christian values in our societies. To be a politician is a calling from the Lord, like to be a pastor or a priest. You are called by the Lord to serve your societies.

Furthermore, the General Secretary of the ECPM, Guido van Beusekom and the representative for Eastern Europe, Leo van Doesburg, were present at the conferencem together with many other participants.

The participants and the organizers of the conference also received greetings from the General Secretary of the European People’s Party Antonio Lopez Isturiz, who stated about party’s support of the consolidation of Christian democrats of Eastern Europe and the establishment of a stable cooperation between them. In his written address to the Conference he expressed interest in the development of closer ties will all European Christian democratic political forces, which share the same values and principles and welcomed the initiative of Khosrov Harutyunyan to host the second conference of the Eastern European Bureau of Christian Democratic Parties in Armenia.

The Conference resulted in establishment of the Association of Christian Democrats of Eastern Europe and the decision to register it according to the Ukrainian legislation. The decision on establishment of the Association was taken by the chairmen and representatives of 5 parties (CDM of Georgia, CDPP of Moldova, BCD, Belarus, CDU of Armenia and the CDU of Ukraine). The idea on establishment of the Association was supported by the Chairs of CDU of Latvia and Estonian Christian Democrats.

All these parties are also a member of the European Christian Political Movement. Also, the CDU of Nagorno-Karabakh joined the Association as an associated member.The chairman of CDU of Armenia, former Prime Minister and former speaker of Armenia, Mr. Khosrov Harutyunyan was elected as the Chairman of the Association. The deputy chairman of the CDU of Ukraine Yuri Reshetnikov was elected as the Executive Secretary of the Association.

The ECPM fully supports the close cooperation between Eastern European Christian democratic parties and hopes that the establishment of the Association will be truly beneficial to Christian politics in Eastern Europe.

ECPYN sets up Political Working Groups

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:12:26 +0200

At the 6th International Summer School "(South East) Europe between Identity & Integration" in Risan (Montenegro) the congress of the European Christian Political Youth Network (ECPYN) decided to start three international political working groups. The working groups aim to provide a platform for more in-depth discussion of certain topics, which can result in the writing of policy documents and political actions.

Three international political working groups were initiated in Risan, concerning the following topics:

Human Dignity (HD)
Church, State, Civil Society and the Public Domain (CSCSPD)
Europe and Co.

Some twenty of about fifty participants in the summer school immediately committed to joining one of these working groups and others are expected to join in the coming weeks. People who were not at the summer school are hereby also invited to join the working groups.

Newly elected political secretary of ECPYN, Nutsa Shavladze from Georgia and secretary general Jonathan van Tongeren from the Netherlands are currently setting up the practical side of the working groups, while the concept is allready quire clear.

"With these working groups we intend to provide a platform for more in-depth discussion of some very important topics. We trust that the active involvement of inspired and competent young Christians in these new groups, will help them to come to a better understanding of the core issues at stake and will at the same time result in some policy documents that are well thought through and in effective actions to influence politics. With these working groups we hope to serve ECPM and ECPYN and the furtherance of Christian Democracy together with its social expression in all of Europe" says a visibly enthusiastic Jonathan van Tongeren.

If you would like to know more about ECPYN's international political working groups or if you would like to join one of them, please contact us. You can find contact information on our website www.ecpyn.org/contact Please feel free to forward this message to others who may be interested.

Urgent Action: Help Protect the New Life Church in Minsk

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:24:45 +0200

The Belarusian Christian Democracy party requests your actions of solidarity with the New Life church based in Minsk, which finds itself in a 4 year conflict with the Belarusian authorities over its legally purchased building. On 21 August 2009, Friday, the authorities of Minsk and the police are expected to take over the building. The 1000 strong community of the New Life church and their supporters will start today a prayer marathon inside the building to prevent the injustice to happen.

We are asking you to send a letter of solidarity with the New Life church to the Administration of the President of the Republic of Belarus (see attached). Please, find below the contact information.

The website of the New Life church: http://www.newlife.by/eng/index.php

Respectfully,

BCD international committee, bchd.by@gmail.com, http://www.bchd.info/modules.php?name=News&topic_id=10

Contact Information:

Administration of the President of the Republic of Belarus

220016, Minsk, K. Marx str. 38,

Phone +375 17 222-32-17, Fax +375 17 226-06-10

e-mail: contact@president.gov.by

Press service of the President of the Republic of Belarus

Telephone: + 375 17 222 35 03

Fax: +375 17 222 30 20

press@president.gov.by

New ECPYN board elected

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 14:55:41 +0200

During the 6th International Summer School in Risan (Montenegro) the member congress convened and elected a new board. Furthermore new statutes and several other resolutions were accepted.

The new board members are Răzvan Burleanu from Romania (president), Nutsa Shavladze from Georgia and Vladimir Plamadeala from Moldova. They join Jonathan van Tongeren from The Netherlands who was already elected in 2006.

"ECPYN is a growing network", says the new president Răzvan Burleanu, "and has a lot of potential. Together with the European Christian Political Movement we are building together on Christian politics in Europe by collaboration, exchange of experience and active participation."

On the same congress ECPYN welcomed the youth organisation of the Christian Democration Union of Ukraine as observer member. The Youth Christian Democratic Movement of Georgia received full membership status.

The congress adopted also new statutes and started some working groups.

From left to right: Vladimir Plamadeala, Răzvan Burleanu, Jonathan van Tongeren and Nutsa Shavladze

ECPM welcomes encyclical letter 'Caritas in Veritate'

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 11:54:19 +0200

The ECPM welcomes the insights in the latest, widely appraised, Papal encyclical letter ‘Caritas in Veritate’. The latest economical crisis shows that there is a clear need for Christian values in the economy and this encyclical letter shows what these spiritual truths mean for the ‘bread and butter’ issues where people are dealing with. This becomes even clearer in the very practical points and examples Pope Benedict XVI made in ‘Caritas in Veritate’.

The ECPM agrees that the time is indeed over for unlimited growth without care and justice as Christ embodied. The poor and the creation suffer the consequences of an economy that has no higher purpose than increasing wealth for those who have enough already. A change of mind in the spirit of Christ is needed to turn around these developments.

As expressed in the latest ECPM congress on economy, the ECPM wishes to work with the insights of all Christians who aim to translate Christian faith in economical policies and economical reality. The ECPM welcomes this encyclical letter as a very valuable voice in this common Christian effort.

Follow the mini-blogs during the International Summer School

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 10:09:48 +0200

During the whole week of the International Summer School "(South East) Europe between Identity and Integration" you can follow the developments by reading the mini-blogs on the ECPYN blogspot. Jonathan van Tongeren, secretary general of ECPYN will post there regularly. The first mini-blog about the speech of Emil Krijestorac is allready online.

You can find the ECPYN blogspot at http://ecpyn.blogspot.com

Christian Insights on Economy and Credit Crunch at ECPM Congress in Berne

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 13:45:38 +0200

Representatives of ECPM member parties and organisations, politicians and professionals gathered in Berne, Switzerland from June 10 till 12 for the 5th annual ECPM Member Congress. This year's theme was: A Christian Answer to the Credit Crunch. From a Christian-democratic and Christian-social viewpoint the current economic crisis was discussed by lecturers and participants.

The Congress started with words of welcome by ECPM president Peeter Vosu and representatives of the hosting Swiss parties, EVP-PEV and EDU-UDF, Joel Blunier and José Lorente both arguing for certain cheeses from certain valleys, which caused some laughter.

The first lecture was then given by the Dutch economist and former Member of Parliament for the now defunct Anti-Revolutionary Party, Dr. Bob Goudzwaard. He spoke about "A Christian-social perspective on the global economy". After which there was some time for questions and answers. His slideshow and the text of his lecture can be found in the Virtual Library on this website, under Presentations.

After the coffee break, the Swiss futurist and strategic consultant, Dr. Andreas Walker delivered a lecture entitled "Megatrends and Future Changes as Opportunities or as Threats for Christian Politics?" (slide show in the Virtual Library), which was followed by discussion.

After the lunch the Belgian professor of Public Administration Emile Vanbeckevoort gave a lecture which resulted in a debate, which continued after the coffee break in one of three workshops sessions. The other workshop sessions were given by leading Moldovan economist Veaceslav Ionita and the economist proffessor Eduard Dommen, from Switzerland, who is a specialist in economic ethics. The first was about Energy Policy in Eastern Europe and the latter about Global Trade in a New Political Reality. Dommen approached this subject from the ideas of Calvin. For a taste of this, you can read his article "A reformed perspective on the global economy" here.

At the end of the afternoon the participants in the congress visited the Parliament that was within walking distance of the Congress Hotel in two groups. The two groups had a guided tour of the parliament after which they were met by Members of Parliament Christian Waber (EDU) and Walter Donzé (EVP) respectively. The MPs told about their work, about the typical characteristics of Swiss democracy and there was ample time for questions and answers.

In the evening the board convened. The next morning the member congress took place. After the opening and some anouncements the new statutes were adopted, President Peeter Vosu from Estonia and Vice President Kris Vleugels from Belgium were re-elected and Vladimir Plamadeala from Moldova was elected as board member in stead of Krasimir Momchev from Bulgaria, Dick van Dijk from the Netherlands did not have to be re-elected because his current term is not fullfilled yet. More on the new board member, Vladimir Plamadeala here.

After this new ECPM member parties - the Christian Democratic Forum of Bulgaria, the Christian Democratic Union of Ukraine, the Christian Democratic Union of Armenia and the Christian Democratic Movement of Georgia - were presented by their representatives Volodymir Stretovich from Ukraine, who is also the chairman of the Bureau of Christian Democratic Parties of Eastern Europe, vice chairman Gevorg Babayan from Armenia and George Rukhadze and party leader and MP Targamadze from Georgia. New associate member organisations were also welcomed: Amical Service France, Crown Bulgaria, Romanian Foundation for Democracy and Provita.

After the coffee break the congress adopted the policy document Priority for the Family, the political programme 'A Christian-democrat voice in the European Union' and a Joint Statement on Georgia. Some projects and strategies for the coming years were presented by Johannes de Jong after which Leo van Doesburg reported on the ECPM activities in Eastern Europe in the past year accompanied by a photo impression.

The congress was addressed by Petar Stoyanov, president op Bulgaria from 1997 til 2002 and by video message by Emil Constantinescu, president of Romania from 1996 til 2000.

The participants of the congress then prepared for the excursion to the Swiss countryside, the Emmental valley to be more specific, where they enjoyed a traditional Swiss lunch with a lot of different cheeses, sausage, meat products, bread and wine topped of by a meringue dessert, at a cheese factory. After the lunch the group had a guided tour of the dairy factory, during which both the current and the traditional production process of the famous Emmental cheese were explained and demonstrated. After a bus trip back to Berne via Olten the congress participants parted.

This well attended congress did not only once again have a very well chosen theme but was also a catalyst for new projects and initiatives by the attending people an their respective organisations in cooperation with the ECPM and each other.

Statement of the ECPM members on Georgia

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 23:52:43 +0200

During the 5th Annual Member Congress in Bern, all present ECPM members rallied behind the Christian Democratic Movement of Georgia, in expressing their concerns over the situation in the region.

Therefore all ECPM members declare that:

We are concerned about the situation in the Georgian breakaway regions after the 2008 August war. Russia's policy to fully militarize the occupied territories in Georgia abruptly violates international law and the Sarkozy-Medvedev agreement, increases the tension and could possibly result in the destabilization of the entire region.

Russia has already blocked the OSCE Monitoring Mission in the breakaway regions of Georgia and plans to do the same to discontinue the UN Observer Mission at the Security Council meeting next week, which can result in leaving the Georgian breakaway regions without the presence of any international monitoring body. This could be specifically dangerous as there has been a build-up of Russian troops in the breakaway regions.

We oppose Russia's decision to stop the OSCE Monitoring Mission in the breakaway regions of Georgia the and call on the international community to prevent Russia's possible attempt in the Security Council to discontinue the UN Observer Mission in the Georgian conflict zones.

We call on Russia to fulfill their obligations imposed by the resolutions of the Council of Europe and withdraw the recognition of the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

We, the member parties of the ECPM, support Georgia's sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity and believe that strong, defensible and democratic Georgia will contribute not only to the regional but also to the wider European security.

The ECPM hopes that the international community will show its consistency to protect Georgia's sovereignty and demand de-occupation of its territories, which will create necessary preconditions for much wanted peace and development in the region.

Vladimir Plamadeala elected board member Eastern Europe

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:39:02 +0200

During the 5^th Annual Members Congress, Vladimir Plamadeala (PPCD, Moldova) was elected as the new board member Eastern Europe. He succeeds Krasimir Momchev (BCC, Bulgaria) who also was the other candidate for the position in the board. To Mr Plamadeala, it was very important that there would also be a board member in the ECPM coming from a non-EU country. He was delighted with his election and looks forward to start working with the other board members in order to promote Christian-democratic ideas throughout Europe.

For a small interview with Vladimir Plamadeala, you can click here http://www.ecpm.info/en/page/22860

Also, the current chairman and board member for Western Europe, respectively Peeter Vosu (EKD, Estonia) and Kris Vleugels (C’axent, Belgium) were re-elected. Mr Vosu and Mr Vleugels were thrilled to continue their work with the full support of the ECPM members.

The ECPM would also like to express its gratitude to Krasimir Momchev for his work and commitment during the last four years. The ECPM also hopes that Mr Momchev will remain active within the ECPM framework in the following years.

A reformed perspective on the global economy

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:13:13 +0200

Article by Edward Dommen (specialist in economic ethics), speaker at the 5th ECPM Member Congress. This article will be discussed on the congress.

Source: “Reformed World” (Theological Magazine of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, 1/2009)

Executive summary

The bible has an understanding of how the economy works which is fuller and more realistic than what is taught in today’s faculties of economics. Above all, it has a clear view of the purpose of the economy, an essential issue which modern economics ignores. Calvin was a particularly perspicacious commentator on what the bible has to say about these issues. He stressed that the question was not so much what to produce, but for whom. This article explains some of the essential gaps in present-day economic analysis before taking the example of world trade in labour and capital to illustrate how these authorities cast light on the problems of today’s globalised economy.

Fornicating with all the kingdoms of the world

…the LORD will visit Tyre, and she shall turn to her hire, and shall commit fornication with all the kingdoms of the world upon the face of the earth.
And her merchandise and her hire shall be holiness to the LORD: it shall not be treasured nor laid up; for her merchandise shall be for them that dwell before the LORD, to eat sufficiently, and for durable clothing. (Isaiah 23.17-18).

At the time of Isaiah, Tyre was an important centre of international trade. The attitude expressed in verse 17 reflects a view still widespread today among critics of globalisation. But the astonishing verse 18 answers the critics: the trade, even if it is the hire of a harlot, is justified by the purpose it serves, or as Calvin stresses more tellingly, by whom it serves. Calvin devotes a long commentary to verse 18:

The Prophet does not mean that the merchandise of Tyre will be consecrated to God while she continues to commit debauchery, but describes a time subsequent to her change and conversion. At that time she will not lay up riches for herself, will not amass them by illicit means, but will engage her efforts in the service of God, and will use the profits of her trade in relieving the needs of the faithful. In short, he describes the repentance of Tyre, who, having formerly been addicted to avarice, has been converted to Jesus Christ, and will no longer labour to amass riches, but will employ them in kind and generous actions; and this is the true fruit of repentance, as Paul admonishes, that he who stole should steal no more, but, on the contrary, should labour that he might relieve the needy (Ephesians 4:28). The inhabitants of Tyre, who formerly, through insatiable avarice, devoured everyone else’s riches, will henceforth give of their riches to others. It is an evidence of brotherly love when we meet the needs of our neighbours, as it is an evidence of cruelty if we leave them hungry, especially when we ourselves have more than we need.

For Calvin, the word ‘communication’ has particular significance. He insists on the essential role of conversing, exchanging, trading, passing things on to those who need them – all those activities are included in his meaning of that single word -in defining the very humanity of humanity. The passage below casts light on the passage above by focussing on it the perspective of ‘communicating’. Together, the pair of passages determines the manner in which we should assess how far trade is meeting its proper purpose. They set the stage for the arguments which make up the rest of this article.

Let us realize that as God has thus joined us together, that each of us is obliged to his neighbours. If God had wanted to keep each of us apart, well then, we would not have the necessity that compels us to mix with each other. Whatever people may wish, they have to communicate with each other. So this is what we must come back to: we have to know, in fact, that God wanted to make us like members of one body. And just as the eye cannot do without the foot, the hand without the ear and the mouth without the stomach¹, likewise great and small cannot rest content each with their own person but we must be united and have a mutual bond, as it were, of fraternity. When we have that outlook, everyone will then conclude, ‘I see my neighbour needing me and if I were in the same position I would want to be helped, so I must do likewise’. In short, this communication of which St Paul speaks here is the brotherly love that comes from the outlook we have when God has joined us together and linked us as if in one body, wishing that each one of us should busy himself for his neighbours and no-one should be devoted to himself alone but together we should serve everyone.²

Some basic principles of economics

We must surely recognise that the purpose of any economy is that which Calvin described, echoing Isaiah and Paul: it is an evidence of brotherly love when we meet the needs of our neighbours, as it is an evidence of cruelty if we leave them hungry. For once, Calvin is moderate in his expression: the Magnificat is more outspoken:

My soul doth magnify the Lord. He hath shewed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away³.

The neo-liberal model of the economy exists in the imagination of the hearts of the proud, but not in the real world as the following paragraphs will strive to show.

To them that have shall be given…

The neo-liberal model on which rest international trade in general and the World Trade Organisation in particular⁴assumes that the normal state of an economy is a stable equilibrium. Any disturbance can only be fleeting; everything will quickly and spontaneously settle down again (With an astonishing degree of psychological elasticity those who hold this view of the economy as fundamentally static are nonetheless able to combine it with a vision of it as endlessly growing).

The Bible on the contrary sees the economy in unstable equilibrium. For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance to excess: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath⁵. The aphorism sums up in a single phrase the whole dynamic which explains the jubilee, which in turn underlies both Testaments⁶. Anyone who has not been dazzled by academic economics will spot the process of cumulative causation⁷at work everywhere in the economy, including the international economy. Thus, to give two examples among countless others, the average income in the ten richest countries in 1970 was 23.4 times greater than that of the ten poorest; by 1999 the ratio was 37.5; or the head of the transnational pharmaceutical firm Novartis earned 361 times as much as the least well-paid of the firm’s employees in 2003 and 747 times as much in 2008.⁸

In this dynamic kind of relationship the rich are willy-nilly the cause of the poor: both are inseparable consequences of the single process of cumulative causation. Gregory the Great (c. 540-604) put it simply: “If you have a second pair of shoes and a poor person is barefoot, your responsibility is not to give them to him but to return them to him.” Every economic process must incorporate this requirement if it is to be fair. The jubilee presented in Leviticus 25 emphasises this obligation in melodramatic style but in utter earnestness.⁹

It is not enough to leave the process to private charity, because that leaves the burden on the shoulders of the particularly generous or those who suffer from strong guilt feelings. Neither of those categories is more responsible for the workings of the system than anyone else. Nor is it sufficient to shunt the burden onto marginal processes regarded as charity, as many market ideologues consider social security, not to mention development aid. A disorder which is an essential characteristic of the workings of the economy – of every economy – must be corrected by a mechanism built into the workings of system itself. As William Penn said, “Christians should keep the helm and guide the vessel to its port; not meanly steal out at the stern of the world and leave those that are in it without a pilot…”¹⁰

When I became a man, I put away childish things

The liberal market economy has been described as a gentlemen’s club. Its actors are all assumed to be healthy independent adults in their age of vigour. They have nothing to learn – indeed, according to many purists of market theory, among themselves they enjoy perfect knowledge¹¹, they know everything; maybe therefore they are not merely gentlemen, they are like gods (cf. Gen. 3.5).

Just as the market is perfectly static it is somehow free from the contingencies of human life. It is timeless, even though it mysteriously incorporates a disincarnate form of perpetual adult growth. The playing field (an appropriate place, incidentally, for vigorous young men) is to be level. No-one present on the field is entitled to particular protection. The game is not golf, which is played on undulating ground and in which the players are given a handicap in relation to their skill; it is not even football, where players play in different leagues according to their ability.

Yet, to every thing there is a season (Eccl. 3.1). Children are born and grow up. When I was a child, says Paul, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things (1 Cor. 13.11). For example, says Calvin in his commentary on this verse, learning is necessary in childhood: it does not go with the virile age¹².

Young economies need to learn the skills they need if they are to become fully qualified players, otherwise they will be constantly defeated or sidelined. In the days of GATT¹³, the infant industry argument was a standard implement in the toolbox of international economic policy. Countries could practice new skills behind protective barriers until they were adept enough to put away childish things and affront the adults. WTO has abolished all that.

There are three parties to almost every transaction

Let us look not only to the private convenience of the person with whom we are dealing, but let us also consider what is expedient for the public. For it is perfectly obvious that the interest the trader pays is a public allowance; thus one must properly determine that the contract is of service to the community rather than harmful¹⁴.

Calvin is referring here, in an essay on interest payments, to a constant feature of economic transactions which modern economics tend to ignore: they are hardly ever a private affair between a buyer and a seller, they normally affect other people. In more technical terms, economic transactions normally include externalities. These may take the form of either costs or benefits. An external benefit occurs when the transaction generates a pleasant consequence for someone who was not a willing party to it. If someone buys flowers to put on their balcony, that is a transaction between the buyer and the florist, yet all the passers-by in the street will share in the pleasure of their beauty at no cost to themselves. If a smoker buys a packet of cigarettes to smoke in a café, the act damages the health of the other customers: that is an external cost.

Buyers and sellers actually share an interest in externalizing costs to the greatest extent possible. Why pay yourself if you can make other people pay instead? Furthermore, whereas economic transactions normally take place between a limited number of identifiable partners, externalities may affect a large number of people more difficult to identify. If those affected are scattered and perhaps unaware of what is happening to them, they are more likely to have to carry the external costs or forgo the external benefits. Externalities often bring into play relationships between the strong and well organized on the one hand and the weak or poorly organized on the other.¹⁵

Collective organization or official intervention is normally required to rectify externalities. Calvin’s dictum applies here: one can recognise a just and well-regulated government in that it will do justice to the afflicted and needy¹⁶. It is worth recalling verses 3 and 4 of the Psalm on which he is commenting:

Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy. Deliver the poor and needy: rid them out of the hand of the wicked.

The bible, unlike the neo-liberal economists, recognizes that the distress of the afflicted and needy is not a state of nature but a consequence of the actions of people who could have decided otherwise: that is why they are described as wicked.

Production and trade

The bulk of human needs are met through production. To produce anything, a number of factors need to be combined, including different kinds of labour and capital as well as a variety of natural resources like sunlight, water or minerals. Since the factors of production are not evenly distributed over the face of the earth, some of them usually have to be moved to a different place to be combined with the others. Some of them cannot be moved, like particular rhythms of daylight and darkness or seasons, or mineral resources which have not yet been extracted from the earth. Others are clearly mobile, like labour and capital. These therefore feature prominently in international trade. The rest of this article will not explore the countless pathways of trade in consumer goods and services, but concentrate on international trade in labour and capital.

The world is peopled by both rich and poor. Championing the cause of the poor is God’s very function. Thus Calvin paraphrases Psalm 140.12. We have had ample occasion to recall that the bible constantly and in the strongest terms insists on the obligation to give priority to the needs of the poor. The Protestant ethic realised during the industrial revolution that in this regard it was particularly useful to make sure that the poor had work.

Work may meet the needs of the household directly, without passing through the market, and that kind of work, which statisticians and economists all too often ignore, is as dignified, worthy and useful as the other kinds:

Work takes a variety of forms. For whoever helps human society and brings profit to it through their industry, whether in governing their family or administering public or private affairs, or advising or teaching others or by whatever means, cannot be counted among the idle¹⁷.

None the less, a large part of production is traded for money. One way in which those who have the means can provide work is by buying goods and services produced by others. That does not of course mean that one should buy just anything in order to make work, but that stinginess can be a vice: Those who deprive themselves, and others along with themselves, of the use of a bit of money deserve no praise¹⁸.

International trade in labour

Humankind was created to employ themselves in doing something and not to be lazy and idle¹⁹, Calvin wrote in his usual hectoring manner. Psalm 128.2 had said the same thing in a cheerier way: For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee. The converse is equally true, as Calvin stresses:

For craftsmen and workers, their whole income is in their capacity to earn their living…

As God has placed their life in their own hands, i.e. in the work they do, if one deprives

them of the necessary means it is like cutting their throat²⁰.

Labour is a factor of production like iron or electricity. But it has a further characteristic which is fundamental: labour is people, and people are our neighbour whom we are enjoined to love like ourselves. To treat it only as a means, as a mere input like a lump of iron, is to fail in this essential respect, to be less than human not only to the workers but to ourselves.

To ensure that everyone who needs work has access to it, there are two main possibilities: to move jobs – through delocalisation – to where there are people looking for work, or to move the people looking for work to where there are jobs. There are powerful arguments in favour of the first option. Firstly, people who are rooted in their community, among their friends and relatives, their parents and children, have full scope to contribute to the life of their community in any number of ways as well as by through their employment, for instance by governing their family or participating in the life of their community or advising or teaching others. Delocalisation is normally from a richer to a poorer country. In that respect it is a way of achieving what Catholic social teaching calls the preferential option for the poor.²¹In so far as delocalisation removes jobs from richer countries, the poorer countries have more means at their disposal, including more capital. By the same token, by employing cheaper labour to do the same job the richer countries have freed resources at home which they can use to provide new jobs to replace the ones which have been moved elsewhere.

The other main possibility is to bring the worker to the job. In this direction too it is not just labour that moves, but people. For them it can be a wrench, as God summed it up when he despatched Abram on his travels: Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house (Gen. 12.1). It is also a loss for the society they leave behind, all the more so that it is the more adventurous and daring who tend to depart and those qualities are valuable to the community.

If someone plunders a person’s field or reaps his meadow and seizes everything, everybody will “cry blue murder”²². Yet that is what those who attract migrants are doing: the host society gets its labour cheap in that it does not have to meet the costs of bringing the workers up and educating them; conversely the society which educated them is deprived of the return on its investment.

International trade in capital

Labour can produce nothing on its own. It needs raw materials, tools, equipment and knowhow, in a word it needs capital.

One word, but two distinct meanings. On the one hand it covers finance, which is a form of command over goods and services, over whatever can be bought for money. We shall call this ‘finance’. On the other hand it covers tools and machines, know-how and social order, all of them real things indispensable to the productive process. We shall call this ‘capital’.

Finance

Finance is highly mobile. It can move from one end of the earth to another at the click of a button. When it spots an opportunity for profit it can swoop down in an instant. It can fly away just as quickly. Indeed in Latin America it has been nicknamed ‘swallow capital’ (Capital golondrina). The name is picturesque, but perhaps ‘starling capital’ would correspond better: it travels in a flock; it swoops down and gobbles up the local opportunities;

then it rushes away leaving desolation behind. Depending on its scale, this kind of clustered movement disrupts the local economy both coming and going, as any Icelander will confirm.

We are accustomed to looking first to where we can place money safely. But we should rather have helped the poor towards whom money is in danger, said Calvin²³, but in recent years those disposing of financial capital have not only turned their backs on the poor, but have chosen to place it with the rich where it was even more in danger, thus failing to achieve either of the objectives Calvin mentions.

It is common knowledge that the poor are scrupulous in striving to repay their debts: microfinance institutions achieve repayment rates of 95-98 per cent. It is however excessively costly to discover from London or New York who is the poor peasant woman in a village in Bangladesh who can sensibly be entrusted with a 200 dollar loan. Lending to the poor is essentially a local activity appropriate among neighbours. It is in contradiction with the anonymity of capital on which today’s globalised capitalism rests, but utterly in tune with Christian love for one’s neighbour. The economy of globalised financial speculation and euphoria is now deservedly becoming discredited. Maybe now we can have our cake and eat it: place our money safely for a change, and do that by putting it at the disposal of the poor.

Maintaining the human community, and even maintaining the conditions in which the market can work effectively, requires public services, and these in turn are best paid for by taxation which distributes the burden fairly among the members of the community. One of the motors of international finance is the movement of capital by firms and wealthy individuals to places where it can hide from its obligation to contribute its fair share to the common good, to avoid paying for the services from which the owners of the capital benefit like everyone else. One of the happy consequences of the current financial crisis and the economic recession it has provoked is that people and governments are increasingly unwilling to tolerate that kind of behaviour. Tax havens at least and at last are on the defensive.

Capital

Investment capital may be footloose, but unlike finance it has to settle for a time and fit itself into the workings of its host economy. Capital can be bulky and awkward to move, the more so the more intricately it is plugged into its local setting. Social order, which economists tended to ignore as a form of capital until recently, is particularly difficult to displace because its connections are so multifarious.

Financial capital fornicates with all the kingdoms of the world. All it wants is a passing transaction to satisfy itself. Investment requires a more lasting commitment, even if like many a modern marriage it ends in divorce.

Labour and capital in the wrong places

Surveying the world from the stony heart of the Alps²⁴, we see courageous young people who have left their family and community to seek work, often at the risk of their lives, in order to support those they have left behind. They are struggling to get into the richer countries of the world, however unwelcome they are made to feel there. They are not completely unwelcome however: employers are keen to exploit the migrants’ vulnerability and desperation by offering them work in disgraceful conditions. Meanwhile the financial capital of the rich is

wheeling about cyberspace looking for golden morsels to gobble up, ignoring the poor who could build a better world if only they could get hold of some of the crumbs which never fall from the table. But Father Abraham said to the rich man, “Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things… And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from here to you cannot; neither can they pass to here, that would come from thence… [The rich man’s brothers] have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them… If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead” (cf. Luke 16.19-31).

The rich want the fruit of the labour of the poor, but they don’t want to see the poor people themselves within their gates. The alternative is for the rich to send them the capital they need if they are to be productive, but the rich don’t want to do that either. They don’t even want to let the capital in the poor countries remain there to work with the talents and resources of the local community. On the contrary, they entice the people in the poor countries who have accumulated wealth to send it away to the rich countries which fare sumptuously on it or send it on into cyberspace with the rest.

The last word to Calvin

God gives abundantly to his own people the means to aid others, but the wicked are always so ravenous that their want leads them to have recourse to fraud and rapine. Although the ungodly have wealth in plenty, their covetousness is so insatiable that they plunder right and left like pirates, and are never satisfied. Yet God bestows upon his own people not only what is needed to meet their own ordinary needs, but also to enable them to aid others²⁵.

Bibliography

Biéler, André. (2005). Calvin’s Economic and Social Thought, Geneva, World Alliance of Reformed Churches. Most of the quotations from Calvin have been drawn from this book, but the wording of their translation has been revised. Bonvin, Jean-Michel (1999). Debt and the Jubilee, special issue of Finance & the Common Good. Dommen, Edward. (2003a). “Calvin et le prêt à intérêt”, Finance & the Common Good, no.

16. (2003b). How Just is the Market Economy ?, Geneva, World Council of Churches Publications. Myrdal, Gunnar. (1957). Economic Theory and Under-developed Regions, London, Duckworth. Trocmé, André. (1961). Jésus-Christ et la révolution non violente, Geneva, Labor et Fides.

Prof. Edward Dommen is a specialist in economic ethics. He spent most of his career as an economist with UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development). He has been president of Geneva’s Ecumenical Theology Workshop. He was responsible for the English translation of André Biéler’s Calvin’s Economic and Social Thought (2005) and for the new edition of the original French (2008). He is the author of several books and articles, including How Just is the Market Economy? (World Council of Churches publications).

1 This of course recalls an image which Paul often used: cf. 1 Cor. 12.
2 Calvin, Sermon on 1 Timothy 6, 17-19.
Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; that they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate. (1 Tim. 6, 17-18).
3 Luke 1, 46.51-53.
4 WTO, succeeded GATT in 1994.
5 Matthew 25.29. This dictum, which was popular at the time, appears several times in the New Testament.
6 Cf. Trocmé 1961.
7 This is the name given to the process by Gunnar Myrdal, who shared the 1974 Nobel Prize in economics for describing it (cf. Myrdal 1957).
8 Tribune de Genève, 25 February 2009, p. 11.
9 Cf. Bonvin 1999.
10 William Penn, No Cross, No Crown, 2d edition 1682, part 1 chap 5 §12.
11 According to efficient-market theory, asset prices accurately reflect all available information: cf. The Economist, 7 March 2009, p. 69
12 I hope readers have noticed how Calvin falls prey to the shortcoming for which Paul is so often reproached, of taking ‘man’ in its gender-specific sense. As it happens, it is singularly appropriate to the neo-liberal vision of the economy described in this section.
13 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. It regulated much of world trade from 1947 to 1994.
14 Calvin, Letter to Claude de Sachin (cf. Dommen 2003a).
15 The foregoing passage is based on Dommen 2003b, pp. 11-12 and 42-43.
16 Calvin, Commentary on the Psalms, Ps. 82.3.
17 Calvin, Commentary on 2 Thessalonicians 3.10.
18 Calvin, Commentary on Mark 10.20.
19 Calvin, Commentary on Gen. 1.15.
20 Calvin, Sermon 137 on Deuteronomy 24.1-6.
21 Encyclical Sollicitudo rei socialis §42.
22 Calvin, Sermon 140 on Deut. 24.14-18.
23 Calvin, Letter to Claude de Sachin. Cf. Dommen 2003a.
24 The author lives in Geneva.
25 Calvin, Commentary on the Psalms, Psalm 37.21

6th International Summer School

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 13:32:04 +0200

This year's International Summer School of the European Christian Political Youth Network (ECPYN) is to take place in Montenegro, August 10-15. The theme of this 6th ECPYN International Summer School will be "(South east) Europe between Identity and Integration". The theme will encompass such topics as regional cooperation, border security, immigration, neighbourhood policy, et cetera.

At this time we are working on a most interesting programme. Interesting Lecturers as Niculae Mircovici (Romanian MP for minorities) and Prof Dr. Hans Renner (Czech/Dutch historian specialized in Central and Eastern Europe) have already confirmed.

Around 40 participants from more than 13 European countries have already applied. If you want to join this most interesting Summer School, be quick, because we have limited places.

The registration for the 6th International Summer School closes already on July 1th!

More information (in general) can be found here.
More information about the programme can be found here.
And here it is possible to sign up.

Register now for the ECPM Congress!

Mon, 11 May 2009 16:25:42 +0200

Next month, the ECPM will celebrate its 5th Member Congress in Bern. Since there are only a limited number of attendants possible during the meeting on 11 and 12 June, we urge to register as soon as possible.

A more detailed programme is also available now on our website, together with more information about the speakers.

So if you are interested to know more about "A Christian answer to the credit crunch," please register here.

The registration for the 5th Annual Member Congress closes already on May 15!

The ECPM board and staff hopes to see you soon in Bern on our 5th Annual Congress!

Statement of the Eastern European Bureau of Christian Democratic Parties regarding the recent events

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 10:32:19 +0200

The ECPM strongly supports the statement made by the Eastern European Bureau about the siuation in Georgia.

Below you can read the statement:

The Eastern European Bureau of Christian Democratic Parties is very anxious about the tense situation in the Republic of Georgia these last days caused by the wave of mass anti-government and anti-presidential protests in the centre of Tbilisi.

As Christian Democrats we believe that all conflicts and problematic issues need to be resolved exclusively in peaceful and democratic way – by means of negotiation, compromise and dialogue with a respect to each opinion and a strong desire to affirm peace and democracy.

We call all political forces in Georgia to defuse tension in order to avoid bloodshed. We call on political forces not to urge people to riots and civil commotion but seat around the negotiation table to solve the problems the country is facing.

We call on the Members of the Eastern European Bureau of Christian Democratic Parties to issue a special statement of appeal for a dialogue to all political forces of Georgia.

Sincerely,

Volodymyr Stretovych,

Chairman of the Eastern European Bureau

of Christian Democratic Parties

European Christian Political Movement is very concerned about the situation in Moldova

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 10:03:44 +0200

The European Christian Political Movement (ECPM) is very concerned by the reports it has received from the massive demonstrations in Chisinau, Moldova.

ECPM urges all involved parties to refrain from any kind of violence during the protest and is shocked by the reports of several fatal casualties in the last hours. Again, we urge all involved parties to cease the violence at once!

The demonstrations are a clear result of the elections on the fifth of April and the huge disappointment that many people felt after the announcement of the final election results.

Currently, there are large crowds in Chisinau with people who are questioning the results of the elections. The ECPM urges President Voronin and the authorities to only use peaceful means in dealing with the protesters

As a result of the large distrust of the elections outcome, a thorough and independent investigation on the elections is necessary.

We call the power and opposition to start negotiations and resolve this issue peacefully and in the interest of the people of Moldova.

ECPM also calls on the European Union to play a more active role in the current situation in order stabilize and monitor the situation in Moldova.

On behalf of the ECPM,

Peeter Vosu

Chairman

photo: www.realitatea.net

March 25th at Belarussian Embassy in The Hague (video)

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 14:30:33 +0200

On March 25th, there was a demonstration before the embassy of Belarus in The Hague, the Netherlands. PerspectivE, the youth organisation of the Christian Union party organised this demonstration, on the occasion of the national independence day of Belarus, with support of several other political youth, human rights organisations and other NGO's.

Around 25 people came together to support the Belarussian opposition and to bring a petition to the ambassador of Belarus. In this petition the Belarussian government is called to respect the human rights (freedom of speech, religion, press etc.), the freedom of Belarussians, to reform the system of laws to a fair system according to international standard and to organise free and fair elections.

Pictures can be found here. Watch also our video (in Dutch).

To H.E. Mrs. Elena Gritsenko,

ambassador of the Republic of Belarus in the Kingdom of the Netherlands

As representative of the government of Belarus, the undersigned Dutch organizations ask your attention for the following issues:

Reports of the continued violation of the human rights and fundamental freedoms of Belarus' citizens by the regime of President Lukashenka are both frequent and alarming.

Lukashenka's government represses all groups within civil society who are actively calling on their government to better protect and respect their basic democratic rights. Organizations are fined or forcibly closed and their leaders are imprisoned. Even now, during an agreement with the European Union, there are no big changes.

In light of the worsening human rights situation in Belarus we call upon the government of Belarus to:

Restore democratic values in Belarus,
Organize free and fair elections,
To reform the system of law's to a fair system according to the international standard,
To respect the freedom of speech,
To respect the freedom of the press,
To respect the freedom of assembly and association, and
To respect religious freedom.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Respectfully,

PerspectieF, Youth of the Christian Union party
ChristenUnie
Jonge socialisten (Young Socialists)
Jonge Democraten (Young Democrats)
Dwars (youth organization of GroenLinks)
FNV Mondiaal (FNV trade union)
Jubilee Campaign
ICCO (Interchurch Organisation for Development Co-operation)
Civil Initiative "We Remember"
"Mission to Minsk"

A Europe of values ... which values?

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 10:32:52 +0200

A contribution by the ECPM staff about the current developments in Europe and the possible role of the ECPM.

There has been a lot of talk in the past few years about a 'Europe of values' as a replacement of a 'Europe of markets'. One might wonder if there were any values at all at stake in this 'Europe of markets'. However, the biggest question is not which values have driven the EU these last few years, the question is: which values will drive the European Union in the coming decades.? There are two clear developments that matter concerning the answer to this question.

The first development aims in fact to continue the implicit values of the 'Europe of markets' into this 'Europe of values'. This means a Europe purely based on individualistic and secular values and in practical politics and policies. Of course there will be some mentioning of our 'judeo-christian heritage' in non-sensitive issues but in practice the individualistic and secular approach will determine the policies of the EU. The negative consequences of these philosophies can be seen nearly everywhere around us. We see the troubled youth in our inner-cities because of the lack of family values. We see the results of the 'me first' culture in our economic and ecological crisis. We see an ongoing utilisation of life in scientific developments even when there are alternatives available.

But this does not matter for those who pursue this individualistic secular agenda. They are not representing a majority of the people living in the EU but they manage to hold a great influence among media and policy-making bodies. There are clear signals that this agenda is pushed everywhere in Europe. For example, in several new EU member-states legislation is pushed that erodes the notion of marriage and thus family life. Family life is degraded from a bond of mutual relationships to a number of individuals who live together by mere coincidence. It may not sound surprising but, from a democratic viewpoint, it is extremely worrying that national governments are pressured to give in on these issues only because 'this is the way the EU wants it'. Apparently, there are groups at work who have already defined 'the values of Europe'.

An example of this is the latest piece of EU legislation that is being prepared right now. Under the banner of 'anti-discrimination' there is a very discriminatory proposal in preparation. This proposal would create a situation where any person (or organisation) in any public office who would wear a religious symbol could be sued as 'discriminatory' as soon someone feels discriminated by the visibility of these symbols. This is of course a very dangerous development that would create a situation in which religious people are subjugated to the preferences of any person that has hard feelings towards religion. This is also a clear example of excessive secular individualism, a clear example that the values of the market can become the values of the EU.

And all these developments are going on in a time that clearly needs different values than individualism and secularism. We need values that bring people to reflect on their behaviour, build our families and bring social cohesion in our societies. Christian values have been the driving force behind all human development in Europe. The Christian notions of repentance and reconciliation made it possible to lay the foundations for the EU after the horrors of WW II. Christian values can help Europe in our economical and ecological crisis. This is indeed the 'Europe of values' that the founding fathers intended the Union to be. It is by no means a coincidence that these were nearly all Christian-democrats.

Therefore, it is encouraging to clearly see a different development as well. Politicians who value those Christian values are starting new co-operations and try to gather on issues all over Europe. Together they represent a different set of values for the EU. In Bulgaria politicians and family organisations came together to successfully prevent legislation that would erode family life and family policies. In Romania politicians and family NGO's are now working together to encourage Christian values in the policies of their nation. In the European parliament MEP's have created a new working-group on human dignity based on the notion that the human being and every person is made in the image and likeness of God. This working group will be launched at 25^th of March 2009 in Strasbourg. In Madrid a European and global summit on family values will take place at 27^th of March. In the Netherlands the world congress of families will take place from 10 till 12 August 2009. This is only a short, incomplete summary that leaves out many other initiatives.

So, there is a growing movement among those involved in politics who advocate Christian values for our continent. It is clear that these separate issues like human dignity, family and freedom of religion can be better understood from a common vision at life and society, a vision in which these separate issues are embedded. It is also important that these separate initiatives find a common platform of exchange and encouragement in order to work together much more effectively.

The ECPM offers itself as the meeting place for all those who want to build a 'Europe of values' from a different perspective than 'me and my money'. The ECPM is already involved in these initiatives by taking the initiative or participating in them. There is a growing number of requests for assistance from new initiatives by people who see the basic values of the ECPM as the vision in which their issues are embedded. They recognise in our vision the vision they have for the future of Europe.

We, as ECPM are convinced that the values of Europe are not defined yet. If we are able to work together we can stay alert on new developments and promote a positive agenda for tomorrow's Europe. There is a clear need among the ordinary people of Europe to replace the 'Europe of markets' by the 'Europe of values'. Together we can help our continent to find its roots that will help to grow and prosper Europe in the time to come.

If you have any comments on this article by the ECPM staff, you can contact us by email

ECPM supports demonstration for freedom in Belarus

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 14:10:41 +0100

On March 25, PerspectivE (the youth organisation of the Christian Union party from the Netherlands) will hold a demonstration at the Embassy of Belarus in The Hague. On March 25 the Belarussian opposition celebrates the independence of their country.

Together with other Dutch political youth organisations and NGO's PerspectivE organises a demonstration for freedom in Belarus. Esmé Wiegman, Member of Parliament for the Christian Union party, Leo van Doesburg (ECPM) and other persons will speak. The demonstration starts at 11 AM.

More information (in Dutch) can be found on the website of PerspectivE at: http://www.perspectief.nu/nl/belarus

Invitation for the Inaugural Adress of the European Parliament's Working Group on Human Dignity

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 09:47:20 +0100

The European Christian Political Movement received the following message for which we ask your attention:

"I am delighted to announce that the President of the European Parliament, Prof. Dr. Hans-Gert Pöttering MEP, will be delivering the Inaugural Address of the European Parliament’s Working Group on Human Dignity, on Wednesday 25^th March, in Strasbourg.

On 10 December last year we announced the launch of this Working Group to coincide with the 60^th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, much has changed since 1948. As our common culture has changed, so too has our conceptual anthropology (our philosophical understanding of what man is).

One important way in which things have changed is in the way that all of the EU countries have become more secular. How has this transformation altered the understanding of human dignity that the preamble to the UDHR says is “inherent”; and along with the “inalienable’ rights of all members of the human family, is ‘the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.”

It is crucial to find out – so as to guarantee the recognition of our human dignity, and therefore human rights, for the next 60 years and beyond. It is the mission of the Working Group, to explore these issues further with a special emphasis on the role that culture (which includes the contribution of Christianity) has historically played in the understanding of the human person.

The meeting starts at 4:30pm, and will end at 5:30pm, in Room SDM.S3. There will be interpretation. Please respond by email should you be interested in attending this meeting (and if you would like to be represented, whether your colleague will need a pass to enter the Parliament).

With fervent best wishes,

BENJAMIN HARNWELL
Secretary General of the Working Group on Human Dignity in the European Parliament

The ECPM got the following invitation which we would highly recommend. If you want to participate please confirm your participation as soon as possible to harnwell@hotmail.com

More information on the working group can be found below:

WORKING GROUP ON HUMAN DIGNITY

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights opens with the words: “Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world...” and thereby underlines the mutuality of the parallel concepts human rights and human dignity.

What is an authentic expression of Human Dignity?

What is the true nature of Man? Human beings are made in the image and likeness of God, our creator. It is precisely this image and likeness which Man acknowledges in himself with such profound awe and respect to call human life sacred; and in so acknowledging, allows the moral sense to testify that certain properties are intrinsic, indelible from conception to natural death.

These properties have come to be known in the modern, secular state as ‘fundamental human rights’, and it is these rights the Working Group will seek to recognise in their fullest capacity by recognising their source. The most complete expression of human dignity, therefore, is to be found only in recognising Man’s true anthropological and existential nature. This recognition lies at the foundation of all that the world calls civilisation.

What will the Working Group do?

1) By recalling that Man’s rights are inalienable from his/her being, and not the product of legal charter, the Working Group will enable the European Parliament to influence policy making across the world. This understanding is essential to sustain liberty in a free society.

2) The Working Group will make explicit the point that in believing Man is created in the image and likeness of God lies the most effective protection of Man’s dignity (and therefore his/her rights). It is for good reason that there are five invocations to God in the US Declaration of Independence.

3) The Working Group will serve those MEPs who would welcome a formal grouping to support these aims, and will provide briefing notes and assorted material for relevant debates, draft amendments where necessary and organise conferences and seminars.

Why is the current commitment to a rights-led approach not enough?

It is impossible to deny the source of Man’s transcendent dignity, and at the same time maintain that such dignity exists. The school of ‘humanism’ tried to do just this, and its inevitable failure has left Man in the precarious state of having no inherent rights other than those which the social community deigns to confer on him. This is an expression of what might be called inauthentic human dignity.

That which is most sacred about Man is ineffable because it comes from God (“image and likeness”) who is himself ineffable – beyond human description. International charters can only try to literalise the ineffable. Our true rights lie ineluctably beyond, and infinitely transcend, any charter; no matter how well-intentioned the attempt to codify them, and regardless of whether these rights are to be ‘protected’ by inclusion in the Lisbon Treaty.

Why does the European Parliament need this Working Group?

Because it is essential to the balance between the rights and responsibilities of the individual and the power of the State. Recognition of Man’s authentic dignity affects society’s ability to organise itself in a virtuous way politically, so that this balance never crosses the tipping point: it is the basis of the assertion that the proper relationship between the individual and State is that the latter exists to serve the former, not vice versa.

The European Parliament has a Committee on Human Rights. In order to complement this Committee, the European Parliament needs to support it through a companion grouping promoting Human Dignity, because in our society it is recognition of the dignity of Man that is most lacking, not rights. The Working Group must redress this imbalance. Whilst international charters may recognise certain rights arising out of human dignity, who would dare to presume that such charters are themselves the source of such rights?

What is at stake?

People form their politics out of their most deeply held principles and convictions. A society which holds within the very deepest vault of its culture a belief that God's fullest revelation to Mankind was, for Christians, in the person of Jesus Christ, that he created all men equal, that the central commandment to his people was for them to love one another, and that Man is the purposeful creation of a loving, benevolent God – will have a very different political praxis from one which believes man to be an accidental and meaningless product of survival of the fittest; the exultation of the strong and the elimination of the weak; nature red in tooth and claw.

There is a need therefore to leave room for the personhood of God. One rightful place for this is in any future ‘Constitutional’ Treaty, as an explicit codification of all that the polity holds most important and enduring. People who do not believe in God lose nothing when those who do articulate the basis for their own dignity.

Why does European culture and wider society need this Working Group?

The Working Group is not about proselytism. However, the European Parliament includes MEPs who understand that Christianity is not inimical to the principal values cherished by society – and that it is the spiritual midwife of them. Such ideas as universal suffrage, the rule of law and equality before the law are specifically manifestations of the Judeo-Christian tradition – even if individual proponents of these causes were not consciously acting because of religious imperatives. As they are accepted today, these qualities have never evolved naturally in any non-Christian society.

Some legislatures around the world are currently engaged in a dangerous agenda based on a distorted understanding of the human person which is literally fatally flawed – because they fail to address some of the issues raised above. This agenda continues to corrupt Man’s true nature. The dignity of life erodes and the humanity of Man is diminished; the precepts upon which his rights are founded are hollowed out and undermined.

The work of the Working Group should not be misunderstood as a demonstration of intolerance towards other religions. Indeed, other religions exist around the world quite securely, and their influence in shaping their own cultural and political milieux can be readily discerned and observed. However, the European Union is not simply a smaller version of the rest of the world, but a specific collection of specific countries, with strong identities formed and influenced through the Christian Faith.

BENJAMIN HARNWELL SECRETARY GENERAL

Belarusian Christian Democrats aiming at becoming an official opposition party

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 14:22:43 +0100

The BCD, a member-party of the ECPM, organised on 28 February it's first official party congress in order to become an official Christian-democrat opposition party. The ECPM supported the BCD in this effort. Leo van Doesburg as ECPM representative in Eastern Europe and Guido van Beusekom as secretary-general represented the ECPM together with Auke Minnema, on behalf of the ECPYN. Also representatives of Christian-democratic parties from Ukraine, Finland and Norway were present at the event.

The interest was overwhelming, notwithstanding the pressure from the Belorusian regime. The authoritarian and totalitarian regime tried to block the congress by denying a location as a meeting place. Also a number of regional party leaders were arrested and intimidated. Because of internal pressure by the BCD leadership and international assistance a location became available and more than 700 people participated in this congress.

The representatives of the ECPM and the Christian-democrat parties declared their support for the BCD by addressing the congress. Other opposition parties and candidates also expressed their support, among those Mr. Alexander Millinchevich, who was the opposition leader during the last national elections.

The ECPM wishes the BCD protection, perseverance and blessings for their efforts in the coming years.