For a secular Europe
The E.M.A. advocates the construction of a secular Europe, respectful of fundamental rights such as freedom of conscience, freedom of expression and freedom of philosophical conviction.
In our view, only a secular model of society can enable people who do not necessarily share the same beliefs or opinions to "live together".
Only a secular model of society can, in our view, guarantee every citizen of Europe the exercise of these fundamental rights, with secular institutions - and not their neutrality - protecting different philosophical currents, whether denominational or non-denominational. Secularism as we understand it is not anti-religious, but it does require total mutual respect between religious or philosophical leaders and every citizen. The same applies to the completely free membership of each European citizen to one or other philosophical current, and vice versa for the governments of the EU Member States. This is why we want the principle of secularism to be a binding rule in Europe in the future.
We are concerned about the confusion we see when it comes to European public funding of campaigns to promote certain values or educational principles - the dividing line between "cultural" and "religious" can sometimes be very fine - or when it comes to the "national" vote on certain legislation that we feel is liberticidal.
On this last point, we would like to point out that we intervened with President Sassoli in 2021 when Portugal adopted legislation requiring the holders of public offices mentioned in law no. 52 of 31 July 2019 to make a prior declaration of their status as Freemasons (or members of Opus Dei) or, very hypothetically, other associations. The European institutions do not seem to have taken into account the discriminatory nature of this legislation, according to the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, between Portuguese citizens who are equal before the law.
Also at the end of 2021, we wrote to Mr Daems, President of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, expressing our disapproval of the co-financing by the Council of Europe and the EU of a campaign to combat hate speech under the title "We can human rights speech". Some of the campaign posters tended to associate the words "freedom" and "hijab". Several posters in this campaign - which has since been withdrawn - expressed this association, such as "To accept the hijab is to accept joy", "With the hijab I can be myself" or "Beauty is in diversity as freedom is in the veil". Given the situation of women in Afghanistan, we felt that this assimilation was simply indecent.
In August 2023, we again intervened with Vice-President Schinas, who we know is in charge of the Erasmus programmes, because we had once again been alerted to a potential funding problem for an Erasmus+ project: the "Al Sharq Youth" project, funded by the Erasmus programme, talks about the use of Islamophobia by governments, "The new crusades: Islamophobia and the global war against Muslims". Here too, the dividing line seems very fine, and the subject particularly equivocal.
Freedom of thought, conscience and religion, as well as freedom of expression, are fundamental rights of the European Union, protected in particular against interference "by public authorities and regardless of frontiers" by the provisions of Articles 10 and 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
We would point out, however, that the exercise of this freedom should not be funded by the EU budget and, in particular, the Erasmus programme, when the values of "tolerance", "promotion of peace" and "solidarity between peoples" enshrined in the Treaty on European Union are affected.
In addition, funding intended for religious or philosophical organisations and inherent to their activities in this case, without having to make distinctions or discriminate between them, does not come under the budget of the European Union.
At the end of 2023, on 18 December, we received another alert in the form of a parliamentary question requesting a written reply:
"Question for written answer E-003708/2023
pursuant to Rule 138 of Commission Regulation 138
Monika Hohlmeier (PPE), Sabine Verheyen (PPE)
Under the Erasmus+ programme, the Commission is currently funding a project by Islamic Relief Germany to the tune of 58,640 euros.
The organisation was banned by the Israeli authorities in June 2014 on the grounds that it was part of the financial apparatus of Hamas. The German government drew attention to the personal links between the two organisations and stated in 2017 and 2019 that, to its knowledge, Islamic Relief Germany had significant personal links with the Muslim Brotherhood. In 2014, the United Arab Emirates classified Islamic Relief as a terrorist organisation.
- (1) How can an organisation which has close links with the terrorist organisation Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and which has been banned by the Israeli authorities be chosen as a partner in the field of 'inclusion, promotion of equality and non-discrimination'?
- 2) In view of Islamic Relief's links with terrorist organisations and Islamist associations, does the Commission intend to stop making payments for the project it is funding or to recover the money it has already paid?
- 3) Does the Commission intend to propose the registration of Islamic Relief in the Early Warning and Exclusion System (EDES)?
Finally, we would like to point out that during the budgetary session of 13 October 2022, "General budget of the European Union for the financial year 2023 - all sections (12108/2022 - C9-0306/2022 - 2022/0212(BUD))", Amendment 48 tabled by several Members modified paragraph 31a as follows:
“31 Bis. Expresses its deep concern at the numerous reports of the funding of associations with links to radical religious and political organisations, such as the Muslim Brotherhood; calls on the Commission to ensure that EU funds only finance organisations that scrupulously respect all European values, including freedom of thought, freedom of speech and equality between men and women, in particular through the "Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values" programme; calls on the Commission, therefore, to require beneficiary organisations to sign a charter committing them to these values before making funds available to them.”
As we reminded Vice President Schinas in August 2023, the European Masonic Alliance remains available to work with the European authorities to promote the humanist values to which we remain attached.
With this in mind, we sincerely hope that the above-mentioned charter will be drawn up as soon as possible, but above all that it will quickly be strictly applied, regardless of which associations receive these European subsidies.
Brussels, 4 February 2024.
For the E.M.A.
The Chairman
Henry Charpentier