Abjectief
10-12-2012, 20:21
Citaat:
(Reuters) - Europe's growing religious diversity is creating social and legal tensions that cry out for reform, but even a European Union seeking solutions may not have the political will to implement them.
That was the impression given this week when researchers for a three-year EU-funded study of discrimination and other problems faced by minority faiths in member countries presented some of their proposals to European Commission officials.
The findings of the survey were clear: minority religions, especially Islam, face growing job discrimination and many restrictions in the public sphere. This hinders integration and could eventually put a drag on the EU economy, it said.
"If you don't respect these people's desire to combine their citizenship and work with their religious identity, you exclude them and lose their potential," said Marie-Claire Foblets, the Catholic University of Leuven anthropologist who heads the Religare research project.
The study, which will be officially completed in the coming months, suggests the EU expand its directive against discrimination in the workplace to include a right to reasonable accommodations for citizens' religious needs.
But the economic and political climate has changed since that law was passed in 2000 and the EU called for an extensive academic survey of faith-based problems as part of its current research program running from 2007 to 2013.
"These are already not easy times for defending (what) we currently have in place," said Andreas Stein, head of the equality law unit in the European Commission, who said the 2000 directive was passed "at a politically very opportune moment."
"There is a non-negligible political risk in reopening these directives. Trying to improve them may achieve the opposite in the end," he advised the researchers at the end of a two-day conference held in nearby Leuven and Brussels.
OVERLAPPING RIGHTS
The Commission recognizes it has a problem. In a video address to the conference on Wednesday, Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said the diversification of Europe's population was testing many assumptions of life in the EU.
"Basic rights such as solidarity, equality, freedom and non-discrimination are challenged and often overlap in their implementation on the ground," he said.
"All public players, including European institutions, need models that (give) insight as to how societies can go about when claims and rights overlap."
In their discussions in Leuven, researchers said faith-based disputes were on the rise because believers, often Muslims, are increasingly seeking exceptions to work rules, dress codes and legal guidelines to accommodate the demands of their faith.
Secularists have responded with laws meant to exclude faith from the public sphere such as the ban on full face veils in France and Belgium. Right-wing nationalist parties have sought to defend local cultures and cut back on immigration.
But Islam is now Europe's second-largest religion and many of the EU's estimated 15 million Muslims are citizens born in member states and ready to go to court if they feel aggrieved.
EU anti-discrimination laws were meant to help solve this problem, said University College law lecturer Ronan McCrea, but in practice they "have increased the scope of conflict between religion and the liberal state."
"NEUTRAL NORM" NOT NEUTRAL
Some conflicts arise because the assumption that removing religion from the public sphere creates an equal situation for all actually is not as neutral as it seems.
"The neutral norm tends to favor the Christian majority," said Lucy Vickers of Oxford Brookes University. Christianity has long recognized a division between church and state, or private and public spheres, that fits other faiths less easily.
Foblets, the study's director, said far too many cases of faith-based discrimination were decided on an ad hoc basis in the absence of clear guidance on the issue from Brussels.
"We cannot expect all the solutions to come from the courts," she said. "That is not the future of Europe."
But Stein, the Commission's equality law expert, advised the conference that member states should bring strategic cases to the European Court of Justice in the hope a positive decision there would write faith-based exceptions into EU case law.
"That would be a pragmatic way of getting the concept of reasonable accommodation enshrined in the legal landscape of the European Union without actually changing the legislation in force," he told the researchers.
bronThat was the impression given this week when researchers for a three-year EU-funded study of discrimination and other problems faced by minority faiths in member countries presented some of their proposals to European Commission officials.
The findings of the survey were clear: minority religions, especially Islam, face growing job discrimination and many restrictions in the public sphere. This hinders integration and could eventually put a drag on the EU economy, it said.
"If you don't respect these people's desire to combine their citizenship and work with their religious identity, you exclude them and lose their potential," said Marie-Claire Foblets, the Catholic University of Leuven anthropologist who heads the Religare research project.
The study, which will be officially completed in the coming months, suggests the EU expand its directive against discrimination in the workplace to include a right to reasonable accommodations for citizens' religious needs.
But the economic and political climate has changed since that law was passed in 2000 and the EU called for an extensive academic survey of faith-based problems as part of its current research program running from 2007 to 2013.
"These are already not easy times for defending (what) we currently have in place," said Andreas Stein, head of the equality law unit in the European Commission, who said the 2000 directive was passed "at a politically very opportune moment."
"There is a non-negligible political risk in reopening these directives. Trying to improve them may achieve the opposite in the end," he advised the researchers at the end of a two-day conference held in nearby Leuven and Brussels.
OVERLAPPING RIGHTS
The Commission recognizes it has a problem. In a video address to the conference on Wednesday, Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said the diversification of Europe's population was testing many assumptions of life in the EU.
"Basic rights such as solidarity, equality, freedom and non-discrimination are challenged and often overlap in their implementation on the ground," he said.
"All public players, including European institutions, need models that (give) insight as to how societies can go about when claims and rights overlap."
In their discussions in Leuven, researchers said faith-based disputes were on the rise because believers, often Muslims, are increasingly seeking exceptions to work rules, dress codes and legal guidelines to accommodate the demands of their faith.
Secularists have responded with laws meant to exclude faith from the public sphere such as the ban on full face veils in France and Belgium. Right-wing nationalist parties have sought to defend local cultures and cut back on immigration.
But Islam is now Europe's second-largest religion and many of the EU's estimated 15 million Muslims are citizens born in member states and ready to go to court if they feel aggrieved.
EU anti-discrimination laws were meant to help solve this problem, said University College law lecturer Ronan McCrea, but in practice they "have increased the scope of conflict between religion and the liberal state."
"NEUTRAL NORM" NOT NEUTRAL
Some conflicts arise because the assumption that removing religion from the public sphere creates an equal situation for all actually is not as neutral as it seems.
"The neutral norm tends to favor the Christian majority," said Lucy Vickers of Oxford Brookes University. Christianity has long recognized a division between church and state, or private and public spheres, that fits other faiths less easily.
Foblets, the study's director, said far too many cases of faith-based discrimination were decided on an ad hoc basis in the absence of clear guidance on the issue from Brussels.
"We cannot expect all the solutions to come from the courts," she said. "That is not the future of Europe."
But Stein, the Commission's equality law expert, advised the conference that member states should bring strategic cases to the European Court of Justice in the hope a positive decision there would write faith-based exceptions into EU case law.
"That would be a pragmatic way of getting the concept of reasonable accommodation enshrined in the legal landscape of the European Union without actually changing the legislation in force," he told the researchers.
stijlloze vertaling:
Citaat:
Neutrale EU: voor moslims nu NOG neutraler
Religieuze vrijheden in de EU zijn voor sommigen iets vrijer dan voor anderen. In de EU hebben we vrijheid van religie. Dat is fijn voor mensen die mentaal niet in staat zijn te dealen met het leven zoals het is en die 'dood' een ongezellig en veel te definitief concept vinden. Religiemensen mogen dan ook in alle rust bidden, gebedshuizen oprichten en religieuze gebruiken en rituelen er op na houden, mits niet in strijd met de wet. Prima, laat ze lekker joh. Maar dan. De EU wil discriminatie van gelovigen tegengaan. Crap. Regelgeving, geloof en de EU, alle ingrediënten voor een faalcocktail van epische proporties. En jawel. Want wat blijkt, na een studie door de religieuze diversiteitsdenktank Religare: de neutrale houding van de Europese overheden inzake de godsdienstvrijheid is discriminerend voor moslims. De 'neutrale norm' past namelijk beter bij het christendom dan bij de islam, omdat het christendom de scheiding tussen kerk en staat erkent. En de islam niet. Dus is neutraal voor moslims niet neutraal genoeg want die zijn veels te middeleeuws voor neutraal. Dus wat gaan we daaraan doen? Gewoon tegen moslims zeggen 'Geloof wat je wil maar hou je aan de regels want die gelden ook voor jou'? Nee. Dat is natuurlijk niet weg-met-ons genoeg. Lidstaten worden aangemoedigd om bepaalde zaken voor het Europese Gerechtshof te brengen. Als de rechter oordeelt in het voordeel van de gekwetste en/of gediscrimineerde gelovige kunnen met dat vonnis dus uitzonderingen op de wet gemaakt worden op basis van geloof. Op die manier "komen we gelovigen tegemoet binnen het juridische landschap van de EU zonder daarbij de bestaande wetgeving aan te passen." Islamiseren onder de radar dus. Want ojee, niet iedereen erkent de scheiding tussen kerk en staat. Nieuwe EU volkslied: Alle menschen werden Moslimbrüder. Zie ook: Thilo Sarrazin LIVE in De Balie.
bronReligieuze vrijheden in de EU zijn voor sommigen iets vrijer dan voor anderen. In de EU hebben we vrijheid van religie. Dat is fijn voor mensen die mentaal niet in staat zijn te dealen met het leven zoals het is en die 'dood' een ongezellig en veel te definitief concept vinden. Religiemensen mogen dan ook in alle rust bidden, gebedshuizen oprichten en religieuze gebruiken en rituelen er op na houden, mits niet in strijd met de wet. Prima, laat ze lekker joh. Maar dan. De EU wil discriminatie van gelovigen tegengaan. Crap. Regelgeving, geloof en de EU, alle ingrediënten voor een faalcocktail van epische proporties. En jawel. Want wat blijkt, na een studie door de religieuze diversiteitsdenktank Religare: de neutrale houding van de Europese overheden inzake de godsdienstvrijheid is discriminerend voor moslims. De 'neutrale norm' past namelijk beter bij het christendom dan bij de islam, omdat het christendom de scheiding tussen kerk en staat erkent. En de islam niet. Dus is neutraal voor moslims niet neutraal genoeg want die zijn veels te middeleeuws voor neutraal. Dus wat gaan we daaraan doen? Gewoon tegen moslims zeggen 'Geloof wat je wil maar hou je aan de regels want die gelden ook voor jou'? Nee. Dat is natuurlijk niet weg-met-ons genoeg. Lidstaten worden aangemoedigd om bepaalde zaken voor het Europese Gerechtshof te brengen. Als de rechter oordeelt in het voordeel van de gekwetste en/of gediscrimineerde gelovige kunnen met dat vonnis dus uitzonderingen op de wet gemaakt worden op basis van geloof. Op die manier "komen we gelovigen tegemoet binnen het juridische landschap van de EU zonder daarbij de bestaande wetgeving aan te passen." Islamiseren onder de radar dus. Want ojee, niet iedereen erkent de scheiding tussen kerk en staat. Nieuwe EU volkslied: Alle menschen werden Moslimbrüder. Zie ook: Thilo Sarrazin LIVE in De Balie.