In this book, Ronan McCrea has marvellously captured the will-o'-the-wisp nature of the relationship between the European Union (EU) and religion. At first glance it seems surprising that the EU should be particularly concerned with religion, given its primary political and economic responsibility for regulating the single market. And yet, perhaps as a result of the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty and the debate over a reference to God in the preamble to the proposed (and rejected) EU Constitution, it becomes clear that issues of religion, together with the continuing desire of organised religions to influence law, policy and public debate, have resulted in the EU recognising and responding to religion's public presence.
By necessity, the EU's response is informal and that is what makes McCrea's contribution so important. He recognises the EU's weak democratic legitimacy and limited authority compared with the historically rich cultures of its 27 Member States. The constitutional and institutional position of religion is described, including the complexity of Church–state relations and the continuing desire of religion to have a public voice on moral and ethical issues. The attempts of religion to influence law and policy-making, as well as its role in the educational sphere, are addressed. McCrea asserts that the EU uses an identity-based approach to religion which enables it to engage with religion without needing to make value judgments about religious truth claims. In this way, the EU provides a balanced approach between religious, humanist and other cultural influences – this is McCrea's central thesis. In balancing different cultural influences, including religion's strong tradition of promoting communitarian, moral and ethical principles with humanism's equally strong emphasis on personal freedom and equality, the EU is able to employ a flexible approach which is potentially inclusive of all its citizens because individual identities are respected and national identities are not undermined.
Religion itself is not defined, although it is clear that the book's focus is the mainstream protestant and catholic Christian traditions, together with Islam. This gives rise to one of the text's most significant features because, by characterising Christian traditions as ‘insider’ faiths and contrasting them with Islam as an ‘outsider’ faith, McCrea is able accurately to describe the historical inheritance and influential role of Christianity within the EU's public order. Thus, Christianity is treated more favourably because of its culturally entrenched status in most Member States. Christianity is also the religion that, especially since the Reformation, has increasingly given up notions of theocratic government and has adapted to accommodate a tolerant and pluralist European culture. The reciprocal effect of this flexibility is that Christianity benefits from being the religion most easily accommodated in the EU's public order. The use of the terms ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ faiths conveys this imbalance in the EU's treatment of different religions in a way that emphasises a sense of cultural closeness or distance rather than religious discrimination. Nevertheless, McCrea is alive to the consequences of such unequal treatment and, towards the end of the book, asks what can be done to address this imbalance, suggesting that, in the future, ‘insider’ faiths and their adherents may be required ‘to address some of the “grey areas” and ambiguities in their attitudes towards the relationship between law, religion and the state’ (p 270).
In exploring how the notion of balance works in practice, McCrea examines how the EU pursues its commitment to uphold both fundamental rights and liberal democracy. The protection of religious freedom is considered, including how that freedom is determined by the interaction of the European Convention on Human Rights and the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights on the one hand and EU law and the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice on the other. McCrea articulates the nuances of the debate in this contentious area where arguments can all too quickly polarise around those who reject what they perceive as religious practice being banished to the private sphere and those who see the communitarian, social and political roles of religion as a threat to individual autonomy.
The EU's approach to the regulation of religion in the single market is seen as a response to the identification of religion as both an economic choice and something requiring protection from economic and commercial pressures. For example, EU law is examined in relation to the accommodation of religious identity in the workplace, which is expanded to the entire marketplace through the concept of indirect discrimination. At the same time, this is contrasted with circumstances where such protection must nevertheless give way to wider public interests such as the commercial nature of the market economy.
The book explains how the EU accepts and respects the status of Churches and religious associations in Member States, while recognising the need for limitations to be placed on religion, especially to protect liberal democratic principles and to guard against theocratic tendencies. Such limitations are analysed in relation to the enlargement of the EU, including the processes governing accession to the EU and policies governing migration and integration. Often, a comparative approach at Member State level is used to assess how competing identities (such as religious attitudes to gender and sexuality) may pose a threat to the EU's core values of pluralism and the proper functioning of liberal democracy.
Having identified and examined the EU's balanced approach to religious and humanist influences in its public order, the book raises but does not address the extent to which that approach is, not least from a political and legal perspective, fragile and vulnerable to manipulation in ways that may not ultimately benefit the EU's core values. While the EU's informal approach may work at present, it is certainly not without its contradictions and compromises. Is a more systematic approach called for, or is the presence of religious and secularist influences in the EU's public order best accommodated by an informal, pragmatic and evolutionary approach?
