(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - European Commission President Jose Barroso told about 20 Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Buddhist leaders at an annual consultation in Brussels that the EU aimed to promote democracy and human rights both in Europe and in its neighbouring countries.Several of the Christian representatives present expressed concern about religious freedom in the mostly Muslim Arab world, which has seen more freedom of speech in recent months.Barroso said the changes in the Arab world were “of historic proportions” and compared the challenge of anchoring democracy there to the task the EU found in post-communist Europe. “I strongly believe these challenges cannot be met without the active contribution of the religious communities,” Barroso told the meeting. Democratic rights included freedom of religion and belief, he stressed.European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said “there is no contradiction between Islam and democracy. This period of openness must be maintained after the revolutions and religious and other minorities must be respected.”Rotterdam Bishop Adrianus van Luyn, head of the COMECE commission of Roman Catholic bishops conferences in the EU, said the progress and stability the EU sought in the Arab world would depend on an improved relationship between religions there.“This requires freedom for all faiths, an end to the discrimination of smaller religious communities and the participation of moderate forces in the construction of society,” he said.“Religious differences have often been manipulated or even whipped up on purpose,” he said.
Warsaw Cardinal Kazimierz Nycz said Christians in Europe were watching events in the Arab world “with hope, but also with fear for the future of those societies.”
Germany’s top Protestant leader, Nikolaus Schneider, said the EU should help foster diversity in the Middle East. “Pluralism is not a curse word, it’s necessary for the xistence of a free and democratic society,” said Schneider, chairman of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) umbrella group of Protestant churches.
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