Sutherland makes moral case for EU

Former European Commissioner Peter Sutherland says Christians should support Britain remaining in the European Union (EU).

In a lecture at the Jesuit-run Heythrop College, London, on 26 September, Mr Sutherland highlighted the Christian values that underpin the EU. He argued that the debate about Britain’s future in Europe should rise above the material considerations and instead focus on its foundational aim to “tame nationalism”. “Behind this laudable aim was something even more fundamental. It was to create a political entity that was an expression of the Christian values of the dignity of man and the equality of man,” he said.

Mr Sutherland, who is a former European Commissioner for Competition and Education and chairman of the investment bank, Goldman Sachs International, reminded his audience that the Founding Fathers of the EU’s integration process were Christian Democrats who had witnessed a terrible European conflict and that in rejecting nationalism, they had a moral purpose. Britain with its “obstructionism and negativism” – especially with regard to the EU budget and the transfer of funds from rich to poor states –  rejected the concept of solidarity.

He predicted that government attempts to renegotiate the terms of Britain’s membership of the EU would fail and that the country could then be on a “collision course” following a referendum on membership. He spelled out the commercial implications of Britain leaving the EU, pointing out that the EU provides for about 50 per cent of UK trade and is “vital” for the financial services sector. Then there was “the broader political issue of the value in principle of the whole experiment”.

“If there is a moral value in what European integration seeks to achieve, as I believe there clearly is, then Christians have a part to play in this historic debate,” he said.