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Church and State In the New Member Countries of the European Union

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 July 2008

Balázs Schanda
Balázs Schanda
Affiliation:
Lecturer, Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Budapest
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In May 2004 eight former communist Central and Eastern European countries joined the European Union. Written constitutions in the region now contain guarantees on freedom of religion together with fundamental statements on Church-State relations. Since the fall of communism a net of bilateral agreements has been negotiated with the Holy See. Of the established members of the EU only Austria, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain had concordats whilst France and Luxembourg were partly bound by such treaties. Amongst the new member states only the predominantly Orthodox Cyorus has no contractual relationship with the Vatican. A pragmatic reason for this may be that the new members went through a very rapid leagal transition marked by considerable uncertainties after the fall of communism. The Catholic Church did not seek privileges with the agrements, but rather legal certainty. The stadards of religious with the agreements, but rather legal certainty. The standards of religious freedom in the new member states are generally good compared with the resrt of Europe. None of the new member states adopted a state church model, and none of them followed a rigid separation model either. Most new member states to be particularly valued by those who experienced forced secularism during communist rule.

Type
Articles
Information
Ecclesiastical Law Journal , Volume 8 , Issue 37 , July 2005 , pp. 186 - 198
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical Law Society 2005

References

1 The complex issues raised by its possible accession are not the subject of this paper.Google Scholar

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