Identity Crisis: The European Union's Struggle with the ‘Religion Question'

As the self-styled “secular” European Union rapidly expands it is inevitably confronted with a major challenge to its identity when it encounters states with huge religious populations or perhaps ones that define church and state separation differently. States such as Poland, with its massive Catholic populous or Muslim-majority Turkey create renewed doubt about what it means to be “European” and how EU members should appropriately deal with religion in public life.

Some see the EU’s struggle over the ‘religion question’ as a sign of its own fundamental identity crisis. The creation of the EU was an attempt to establish a new type of nation, with a common European identity and culture.  But what is this “European identity” and how is it being tested by new membership?

Many believe also that EU expansion is infusing renewed religious vitality into the political and social life of Europe. It is reviving political recognition of the Christian and specifically Catholic roots of European integration as the EU encounters new participants that are seen as different.

The debate over Turkey’s admission demonstrates that Europe is a torn county, divided over its cultural identity, because of its inability to answer the question of whether European unity and identity should be characterized by a common heritage of Christianity and Western civilization or by modern secular values of liberalism, multiculturalism and democracy.  This paper will delve into these pressing issues and provide a fresh perspective on the ‘religion question,’ which has been overlooked for too long.