Pope Francis' visit to the European Parliament is not a special event. Dialogue between the EU and Vatican City started in the 70's
by Emanuele Bonini
Tomorrow pope Francis will pay visit to the European parliament in Strasbourg, for the second time in the history of the European Union and twenty six years after last pope's visit to the EU institution. It was Pope John Paul the 2nd the one who broke the tradition of non-relation between the EU and the Vatican State. The 11th of October 1989 he travelled to Strasbourg opening a new era in bilateral ties. Until that moment relationships between EU and the State of Church were just formally held: there was a mutual recognition and nothing more. There reason is clear: the European Union was born as European Economic Union. The political dimension of the single market was not yet in the agenda, and there were no reasons to have ties with the State of Church. Only once the political construction of the former EEC was developed the situation changed. Anyway, the 21st of October 1958 Robert Schuman addressed the plenary session of the European Parliament paying tribute to pope Pius XII, dead few days before (the 9th of October). In that occasion a Pope entered inside the European institutions for the fist time ever. More structured ties will be established only in the 70's. In 1970 the State of Church decided to have a permanent mission in Brussels, establishing an Apostolic nuncio to European Community. Next step will be the creation of the European Pastoral Information Service (EPIS) in 1976, then turned into the Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Community (COMECE), the body which put together the 27 Catholic Bishops' Conferences of the European Union and it has a permanent Secretariat in Brussels. This new foreign policy adopted by the Holy See reached the highest point in 1989, when pope John Paul II payed visit to the European Parliament, meanwhile become directly elected by the citizens.
Thus the Vatican City State changed its approach towards the European Union (at those times still ECC- European Economic Community) earlier than the ECC. Only at the beginning of the 90's Europe started having a more pro-active role in bilateral ties with the Church, thanks to Jacques Delors, at that time at the head of the European Commission. The Treaty on European Union recognize «legal value» to the Holy See-European Unione dialogue, and a decade later the European neighbourhood policy report 2005 put Vatican City among those countries to deal with. In the report was written «there is the need to recognize a particular attention to those countries of the European continent not doing part of the European Union, that for historical and geographical reasons have ties with the EU (Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, Vatican City, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Norway and Iceland), and to permit the participation at the neighbourhood policy process». Despite Vatican government has never asked to access the EU, dialogue with Europe remains a key part of the foreign agenda, as certified by article 17 of the Lisbon Treaty where is underlined the importance of the social dialogue with «churches».
Tomorrow pope Francis will pay visit to the European parliament in Strasbourg, for the second time in the history of the European Union and twenty six years after last pope's visit to the EU institution. It was Pope John Paul the 2nd the one who broke the tradition of non-relation between the EU and the Vatican State. The 11th of October 1989 he travelled to Strasbourg opening a new era in bilateral ties. Until that moment relationships between EU and the State of Church were just formally held: there was a mutual recognition and nothing more. There reason is clear: the European Union was born as European Economic Union. The political dimension of the single market was not yet in the agenda, and there were no reasons to have ties with the State of Church. Only once the political construction of the former EEC was developed the situation changed. Anyway, the 21st of October 1958 Robert Schuman addressed the plenary session of the European Parliament paying tribute to pope Pius XII, dead few days before (the 9th of October). In that occasion a Pope entered inside the European institutions for the fist time ever. More structured ties will be established only in the 70's. In 1970 the State of Church decided to have a permanent mission in Brussels, establishing an Apostolic nuncio to European Community. Next step will be the creation of the European Pastoral Information Service (EPIS) in 1976, then turned into the Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Community (COMECE), the body which put together the 27 Catholic Bishops' Conferences of the European Union and it has a permanent Secretariat in Brussels. This new foreign policy adopted by the Holy See reached the highest point in 1989, when pope John Paul II payed visit to the European Parliament, meanwhile become directly elected by the citizens.
Thus the Vatican City State changed its approach towards the European Union (at those times still ECC- European Economic Community) earlier than the ECC. Only at the beginning of the 90's Europe started having a more pro-active role in bilateral ties with the Church, thanks to Jacques Delors, at that time at the head of the European Commission. The Treaty on European Union recognize «legal value» to the Holy See-European Unione dialogue, and a decade later the European neighbourhood policy report 2005 put Vatican City among those countries to deal with. In the report was written «there is the need to recognize a particular attention to those countries of the European continent not doing part of the European Union, that for historical and geographical reasons have ties with the EU (Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, Vatican City, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Norway and Iceland), and to permit the participation at the neighbourhood policy process». Despite Vatican government has never asked to access the EU, dialogue with Europe remains a key part of the foreign agenda, as certified by article 17 of the Lisbon Treaty where is underlined the importance of the social dialogue with «churches».
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