Key Policies for the EU Election

A Christian Europe

When the CP-CPA argues that Europe is Christian, we do not mean that every individual is Christian, nor that special privileges must be accorded to the Church. Instead, we identify the fundamental liberties and rights enjoyed by the citizens of Britain and the continent as stemming directly from Christianity, especially its roots in Judaism. We agree with the conviction that Europe must recover its Christian foundations "if it truly wants to survive."

To cut Britain and the European Union from the foundation of Christianity is to cut democracy, the rule of law and our open societies from their historic, umbilical cord. Our campaign is to expose attempts by the political and intellectual elites of Europe to impose the false idea that human rights are secular, not Christian. They falsely believe this dry, secular philosophy can form the basis of a universal culture to which non-Christian nations can subscribe. The historical record is clear - basic human entitlements won in Europe (as opposed to the modern rights culture created by European institutions) have not been achieved through secularism. They have come from the Judeo-Christian commitment to the moral law and the conviction that every person is equal before God. Put simply, if democracy is to be preserved and European culture to survive, their Christian roots have to be defended, upheld and re-adopted by the body politic.

No less than seven member states of the EU sought to ensure the recognition of Christianity in the draft EU Constitution/Lisbon Treaty. Their attempts were rejected. The CP-CPA is campaigning to give voters a say in the democratic process so that this issue is re-opened and a confident and open expression of our Christian cultural identity is freely adopted. Christianity was originally and has always meant to be a counter-cultural subversive faith. It is in this spirit that we are engaging in these elections - to counter established, secular orthodoxies and offer instead a better vision based on biblical hope.

An authentic expression of the Gospel is always to be made on the basis of a free offer, including through electoral politics. The CP-CPA therefore presents an alternative vision of Europe to that of the secular parties - where we want the institutions of the EU freely choosing to acknowledge that Christ is sovereign. Our goal is for all the actions of the EU to be measured against the plumbline of the Lordship of Christ. By working with other Christian parties in Europe, the CP-CPA embraces the democratic process as the means for the peoples of the EU to adopt this vision.

The involvement of the CP-CPA in the European elections does not come with a claim to be heard simply because we are Christian, nor with claims that scriptural justification for our policies somehow ends the debate. Instead, our candidates are active in the public square, presenting compelling arguments, policies and an overall vision that invites support because it seeks the common good of all the citizens of Europe.

It is because of our commitment to the common good that we see no place for Turkey in the European Union. Our continent is not just an economic zone, or a geographical area or a set of values - it is a combination of all these. For economic reasons, Turkey is not ready to be admitted, nor are EU members states able to absorb millions of potential economic migrants. On geographical grounds, if Turkey can become a full member when it is predominantly in Asia, why not admit other nations to the EU, such as Israel? But the CP-CPA agrees with Pope Benedict's conviction that Turkey has "always represented another cultural continent in the course of history, in permanent contrast to Europe".

In the European Parliament, MEPs elected for the CP-CPA will:

1. Resist attempts to destroy the democratic heritage of Europe that takes self-government away from peoples and deprives them of the expression of their individual culture. We see this especially in attempts to drive out Christianity from the public sphere and replace it by a 'secular' moral vacuum.
   
   
2. As Westminster begins its sittings each day in prayer, we think that every meeting of the European Parliament should also begin with Christian prayer, acknowledging Christ's sovereignty and seeking godly wisdom. In Strasbourg and Brussels, we would like these prayers to be said by Europe's young people, invited, individually, from all over the Union, to come and pray, before MEPs start the business of every parliamentary day.
   
   
3. Oppose the current application by Turkey for full membership of the European Union. In doing this we note Turkey's failure to recognise the Armenian genocide, the treatment of women and minorities such as the Kurds and also the fact that Christian communities in Turkey still cannot acquire land to build churches. There are signs that intolerance of Christianity in Turkey is increasing rather than diminishing - this cannot be
   over-looked.

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Greening the Global Economy

The European economies have a special responsibility to drive forward the construction of a new international financial architecture that prepares for the end of a carbon-based global economy. The EU must put jobs, the developing world and the climate as paramount issues. As much as anywhere else, the European trading bloc has grown rich because of global economic rules cast in its favour. There needs to be a humane future for everyone by re-writing the rules of the global economy so that there is a global, level playing field.

MEPs elected for the CP-CPA will argue for a biblical approach to economics, trade and finance. They will grasp hold of the opportunity that the global crisis presents to argue for an economic model based on biblical justice. At the heart of the principle of Jubilee is the idea of restitution and equality. Our vision is for a global economy which operates within the ecological limits of the planet; eradicates poverty and tackles inequality; and ensures that the essential human needs of all are met.

Throughout the Bible are clear warnings against indebtedness. Excess
corporate and personal debt, especially irresponsible leveraging by the major financial institutions, are at the root of the current global crisis. The politicians can't escape blame - the inappropriate intergovernmental and governmental governance arrangements, such as those reached in the Basle Convention, played a part. So did the policy of US President Bill Clinton of mortgages promoted through Freddie Mae and Freddie Mac to people who could not afford them. Starting in the European Union, the CP-CPA will ensure that financial regulations adopted in Europe and the US rise to the challenge of ending exponential money creation. We want to see a radical deleveraging of the financial system through breaking-up too-big-to-fail banks and through the imposition of progressive capital requirements for size and connectedness.

Economic development has been accompanied by the accelerating accumulation of human-made greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Globally, it is the poorest who consume the least but which suffer the most from the impacts of climate change. In the European Parliament, the CP-CPA will ensure the opportunity offered by an unprecedented global crisis is used to cut emissions and help developing countries adapt, especially through the adoption of ethically responsible green technologies.

The European Union will have to work closely with the new Barack Obama administration to fulfil these objectives. By some measures, the USA is still fully 50% of the global economy and remains the primary engine that drives the world economy. But the current model of globalisation is grossly out of balance. It does not deal with the mis-use and plunder of the planet's resources, which cause ecological disaster and have implications for global warming. It relies too heavily on the continuation of America's overheated consumerism, on America's virtual absence of personal savings and on America's ongoing massive trade deficits. These economic issues and America's waste of global resources are ultimately moral failings and are unsustainable.  The European Union and the United States must return to being traditional income-driven economies. We want an end to the artificial prosperity that is driven by periodic asset bubbles, fuelled by manufacturing energy-related trade deficits and by cheap credit generated through financial engineering. Through bold leadership, where the US and EU choose to go, other nations will be inspired to follow. This will require what the Gospels speak of as self-denial and obedience to the way of the Cross.

The European Union must acknowledge first it has grown rich at the expense of others and act to restore justice. As the EU and US establish a new international financial framework, an opportunity exists to put in place agreements on taxation that oblige all corporations to pay their fair share towards society. Christian Aid estimates that every year, aggressive tax avoidance, and tax evasion, deprives the developing world of at least US$160bn in lost corporate tax. Such an amount, if used according to current spending patterns, could save the lives of 350,000 children under the age of five a year. The CP-CPA will work to ensure the EU puts in place new rules that require individuals and multinationals pay taxes on the profits they make in the country in which they make them. As long as poorer countries see their wealth leave by the backdoor, they will be forced to rely on aid to provide their people with even the most basic of services.

However, the first and over-riding priority is to prepare for the end of the carbon-based economy. We favour a sustained programme of investment in
energy conservation and renewable technologies as the primary means to boost demand, rather than reliance on money-supply solutions. We will act
in collaboration with Christian parties in the EU to take the following steps:

1. Challenge the 'business as usual' approach to running Europe's economies, where increasing levels of consumption has eaten into the ecological capital of the world. A re-ordering of values is needed. One step will be to restore Sunday as an EU-wide day of rest, to allow reflection by individuals and communities on the role they have to play.
   
   
2. Pursue fundamental reform of the governance of international financial institutions, including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), so that votes recognise shares of population and developed and developing countries have parity of voice and vote. Policies and behaviour must respect international standards on the environment, human rights and labour.
   
   
3. A new global financial system which supports fair and sustainable use of resources. Limits will be introduced on damaging speculation by globally co-ordinated controls on derivatives trading, credit securitisation and other complex instruments.
   
   
4. Multi-national companies will be compelled to act in a transparent and accountable manner. This will be achieved by introducing country-by-country international accounting standards to disclose profits and taxes made in each country.
   
   
5. At Copenhagen, we want the EU to press for substantial cuts in CO2 and other greenhouse gases to meet the imperative of keeping global average temperature increases as far below 2C as possible. This requires cuts in the range of 25-40% below 1990 levels by 2020.
   
   
6. We support the goal of 80 per cent decarbonisation and will use a mix of market signals, regulation and massive investment of 75 billion euros a year in energy efficiency and renewables to achieve this.
   
   
7. Rationing is needed and we back an EU trading system which sets a control total for the industries within the regime and lets the market in carbon allocations chase down the most efficient ways of making cuts.
   
   
8. Large-scale decarbonisation is needed first at the production end - we do not favour personal carbon allowances as they would be authoritarian. EU responsibilities must not be achieved by buying carbon credits from poorer countries. A commitment to fully monetise all environmental externalities will be sought so market signals reduce pollution in every form.

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Trade Justice and Equality

The biblical mandate towards equality shapes a Christian Democratic vision for Europe. But it also guides our understanding of how the EU should relate to its neighbours, especially in the developing world. This is why the CP-CPA campaigns for trade justice and sustainable use of scarce resources. Our outlook is not just for justice and equality inside the European Union, but outside as well.

The CP-CPA is committed to improving social relations within EU member states through making our countries more equal. Research on levels of trust, life expectancy, obesity, teenage births and on other social outcomes show that on each of these measures, more equal societies do better. Beyond a certain level of wealth, further economic growth does not improve well-being.

What does make a difference to well-being is how evenly growth is distributed. More equal societies bring gains not just for the poor, but the prosperous too. Comparative data demonstrates that even the middle classes in less equal countries do worse than those with the same income levels in more equal countries.

We are convinced too that international relations will improve when Europe recognises that poverty in the developing world impacts on the security and well-being of our own continent. For this and reasons of justice, our MEPs will press for Britain and its partners in the European Union to revisit economic trade agreements with countries in the developing world, so that they are not exploitative, but fair and uphold core labour and environmental standards.

For development to succeed, countries need the opportunity to earn their own resources for fighting poverty and growing their economies, not just access to development assistance and debt relief programmes. In the European Parliament, the CP-CPA will focus on Africa's specific trade needs. This region of the global south has been earning less and less from trade, instead of earning the resources it needs to invest in its people. In 1980, Africa had a 6% share of world trade, but by 2005, this had dropped to less than 2%. Even small percentages of global trade can make a big difference: in 2006, 1% of global trade was worth $117 billion.

Working in partnership with Africa, we want the EU to tackle barriers to the entry of African products into the European Union and expose trade barriers in other western markets, such as high tariffs and taxes. Greater support will be given to preserve and improve self-sufficiency in food and energy production. Payments in the EU that encourage rich farmers to overproduce and artificially lower prices will also be ended, as they harm the ability of African farmers to compete.

EU-backed development programmes in Africa must first prioritise the formation of sustainable, self-reliant local economies. There must also be an end to artificial trade barriers and help to ensure Africa is enabled to trade on better terms. This will include investment in transport infrastructure and ports that bring African products to wider markets and measures to ensure African farmers and entrepreneurs find European buyers for their products.

Renewed efforts to achieve and exceed the Millennium Development Goals (MDGS) are an urgent, Christian priority. Governments in the European Union will be pressed to accelerate aid towards the 1970 aid pledge of 0.7 per cent of GNI.

The European Union must not exist as a rich man's club. In the European Parliament, every measure will be judged by reference to our love for our poorer global neighbours. These are our Christian commitments:

1. Trade will be the primary component of poverty reduction and national development, delivered through the Doha Development Round of world trade negotiations, with a balance between economic necessities and social and environmental requirements.
   
   
2. The Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) negotiated between the EU and the 'African Caribbean Pacific' (ACP) group of developing countries are unjust and must be re-evaluated. They open ACP economies to all EU exports (including subsidised agricultural goods) and so to avoid lasting damage, a long transition period must be granted to reduce the impact.
   
   
3. Market access will be expanded, especially for African exports. We will press for duty-free/quota-free access to European markets for 100% of products from all African countries.
   
   
4. Subsidy reform. As agriculture is a prime means of employment in the developing world, we will reduce and eventually eliminate the distortions to trade created by EU agricultural subsidies.
   
   
5. Aid for trade. Africa has supply-side problems that have delayed its ability to produce and transport products to market. We will press for EU support in developing essential infrastructure and telecommunications, financial services and payment of adjustment costs.

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Respect for the Human Person

The greatest contribution Christianity has given to European culture is the idea that individuals find their fulfilment in community, through the experience of social solidarity and respect for their unique identity as persons made in the image of God.

It is no co-incidence that the further the countries of the European Union depart from their rootedness in the Christian tradition, that human dignity and the sacredness of every life are degraded. We see this for example in the actions of the biggest group in the European Parliament, the centre-right European Peoples Party, known formerly as the grouping for Christian Democrats. Having abandoned their Christian label, the EPP manifesto for the 2009 European elections has downgraded its commitment to life as well.

The approach of the CP-CPA is distinctive in that we want a compassionate continent that values relationships and the dignity of every individual above material possessions. Our aim is to see slower and less dysfunctional societies. This means we will watch out for the stress that modern life loads on people, especially the economically marginalised and excluded.

The Christian Party - Christian Peoples Alliance is unashamed to declare its commitment to the principle of respect for life. God values everyone equally and so every European citizen from conception (fertilisation) to natural death deserves the protection of the law. Our objective is for the European Union to develop a new caring, pro-life ethic that will embrace an end to all forms of violence, whether wars, gun crime, domestic violence, the abuse of children, the violence of abortionism, cloning and embryo experimentation, sexual exploitation of women, people trafficking, slavery or cruelty to animals.

The language of human rights is often heard in the European Parliament, but rarely that of the most basic human need – to be born, nurtured and protected without fear of death inutero. Resolutions in some European institutions have sought the extension of abortion so that it becomes even more readily available. In the Parliament, MEPs for the CP-CPA will oppose moves to impose abortionism on newer member states. Easy access to abortion in Britain has led to increased exploitation of women, not their 'liberation'. Abortion violates the dignity and integrity of women. It leaves a trail of anger, guilt, resentment, depression and loss of self-respect. Whenever we act or speak, we pledge to do so without judging or condemning any individual, especially not any woman who has been involved in abortion.

In the truly just and caring environment that we are seeking, abortion will cease to be an alternative which any decent person will want to consider. Nobody has a right to bring about the death of an innocent human and killing can never be part of a just policy of care. This requires that we also seek a European-wide consensus to end the conception of human beings for destructive experimentation. Our aim is to end the intentional conception of human embryos, including cloning and by IVF, so that they may be killed for their parts. There are other ways of finding stem cells for medical research that are not morally and ethically questionable.

What we seek is nothing less than a radical rediscovery of a humanitarian approach to medicine and scientific discovery. As medicine has moved away from the age-old principles of Hippocrates it has become corrupted, with gynaecology and obstetrics being particularly brutalized. For example, abortion is incompatible with the vocation of doctors and nurses, and causes psychological trauma to healthcare professionals.

EU member states which proclaim their commitment to equal opportunities for disabled adults often ignore their duty to afford equal protection to disabled pre-born human beings. They have adopted a double standard: on the one hand providing more support and protection for the born disabled than ever before; on the other devising ever more ruthless techniques for seeking out and destroying the pre-born disabled. We will use our voice in the European Parliament to challenge these primitive prejudices and fears concerning disability. Negative and defeatist, deeply insulting to the born disabled, eugenic abortion also causes severe trauma to the mother.

This compassionate Christian approach also requires that we speak up for those who, because of age or infirmity, are perceived in many EU states to be a burden on others. There is a tendency to measure the worth of citizens in terms of their ability to contribute to the economy – seen by support for euthanasia and assisted suicide. These symptoms of a growing utilitarian mentality in Europe will only be overcome by holding fast to Christian ethics.

CP-CPA members will wake up the EU to the reality of the demographic consequences of an anti-life culture. With many European birth-rates falling dangerously below replacement levels, we now face major economic and social problems associated with an ageing population. The issue of live birth-rate in turn has implications for the question of migration. Member states which kill their unborn are having to replace this missing workforce through liberalising the numbers of people they admit, with inevitable issues relating to integration.

Much western aid to developing countries is ruthlessly anti-life, with tens of millions of taxpayers' money being spent on promoting abortion and sterilisation in China, Bangladesh and elsewhere. The CP-CPA deplores such 'aid' programmes: they do not provide solutions to poverty but merely export our 'culture of death' to countries struggling to develop their economies.

Ensuring that the interests of children are paramount requires that the traditional notion of the family is not undermined by the emerging ‘rights’ culture. The CP-CPA will therefore uphold marriage between one man and one woman for life as the best place for children to be raised, including by adoptive relationships. We will back all efforts to support wider family networks, especially through rights of parents to time off at the earlier stages in a child’s life.

In the European Parliament, we pledge ourselves to a continent in which all citizens enjoy equal status, in which the extended family is reinforced as the bedrock of social structure, where motherhood is once again respected and where we use with wisdom the fruits of new scientific discoveries.

MEPS for the CP-CPA therefore pledge to:

1. Challenge the European culture of death by seeking legislation which confers the full protection of the law on all human life from the one cell embryo stage until natural death.
   
   
2. Ensure recognition for the millions of women who have been violated. Post-abortion trauma must now be recognised as a women's disease in all member states.
   
   
3. End across Europe the practises of cloning, embryo experimentation and all reproductive technologies where more embryos are created than are immediately transferred to the mother's body.
   
   
4. Support legislation to prevent the patenting of natural genetic material, modifications to the human gene line and the trade in sperm, ova and human beings at the embryonic stage of development.
   
   
5. Outlaw voluntary, non-voluntary and involuntary euthanasia by omission or by direct act, including neonatal euthanasia and euthanasia of patients in a 'persistent vegetative state'.
   
   
6. Seek the Europe-wide provision of pro-life pregnancy care services, including provision of accommodation for women made homeless by pregnancy, pregnant women with special needs and one-parent families. We also want post-abortion counselling, hospices (capital and running costs) which provide terminal or palliative and respite care for adults, children and infants.
   
   
7. We will reject all attempts to re-define marriage.
   
   
8. EU aid will be ended to any agency or government which promotes abortion, euthanasia or sterilisation programmes, coercive contraception or other violations of human rights (e.g. arbitrary imprisonment or deportation, slavery, or sale of women or children).

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Ending Secrecy and Corruption in the EU

The CP-CPA will see that the light of Christ, his truth and teaching are brought into the work and operations of the institutions of the European Union. Our confidence is that what is hidden will be brought out of the darkness. This light will expose the motives of the greedy, the immoral and those who have allowed their consciences to be corrupted by money, or the pursuit of power.

The European Union is searching for a spiritual dimension and a clear identity that unites the peoples of the union around a common vision. Secularism and the consumer dream cannot play that role and these gods must be dethroned so that other, more human values can flourish. At heart, the problems of secrecy and corruption in the EU are spiritual issues. They reflect a project that is increasingly living by the darkened values of a darkened continent. Leaders everywhere are choosing moral darkness over the light. This dominant value-system is more akin to the condition of Europe in the Dark Ages, than the coming age of Christ and His Kingdom.

Just one third of Britons are expected to vote in the EU elections this year. 'Europe' has neither their confidence nor their understanding – it is seen as remote and irrelevant. Is it any wonder that the democratic powers of the Parliament - which now match those of the Council of Ministers of member state governments - convince no-one in Britain when stories of avarice and corruption capture the headlines?

This year, a leaked internal report by auditors for the EU revealed systematic abuses by Euro MPs. Misallocation of parliamentary allowances enables them to pocket more than £1m in profits from a single five-year term. British MEPs can also look forward to an inflation-busting pay rise this year that could see their take-home pay rising by almost 50%. Some MEPs have claimed for paying assistants of whom no record exists, awarding them bonuses of up to 1½ times annual salary and diverted public money into front companies. Improvements are being made but the CP-CPA will press for even greater transparency and accountability.

The problem of corruption is also systemic. For over 10 years in a row, the European Court of Auditors, refused to give clearance to 95% of the budget. They could not determine if payments went to the right beneficiary; if the purpose of the payment was the right purpose or the approved purpose; and if the amount was even correct. Under EU treaties, it is the European Commission that shares responsibility for how EU programmes are run. But at the moment they take sole responsibility for financial control - how the money is spent. Under the Lisbon Treaty, this responsibility for funds will be shared with member states. The CP-CPA agrees with critics who say that shared control is equal to no controls. It's only a method of shifting the responsibility somewhere else.

There are also some fundamental questions over how European business and political elites do business that we will seek answers to. Secrecy and corruption is a hallmark in particular of the arms trade, with well known European companies using prostitutes, bribes, lies, deception and the undermining of democracy to sell weapons. The Bae Systems slush fund to the Saudi Arabian princes shows the pattern.

The arms trade is associated with corrupt practises - using fear and rumours of wars to drive demand in the developing world. Working with Christians in other EU countries, such as Germany which is now the biggest exporter of arms in our continent, the CP-CPA will expose the evils of the arms trade. This European industry of death is responsible, in large part, for the deaths and dismemberment of millions of people.

While the CP-CPA supports the right of foreign nations to defend themselves – if necessary by military means - the indiscriminate trade in weapons is a morally bankrupt practise. It also contributes an estimated 10 per cent to global emissions of warming gases. The CP-CPA will not allow secret trade deals and hardened hearts to evade European-wide action on this. Recent climate change observations are bringing home the serious nature of climate change impacts - rising sea levels, more frequent and intense floods, and droughts in many places that will cause increasingly greater problems especially (but not only) to many of the poorer nations of the world. This too must be brought into the light.

In the Parliament, we will argue for:

1. An accounting system - a reporting system - that would allow financial controllers in the Commission to control every day what they are spending.
   
   
2. We will fight for a new anti-fraud office to replace OLAF, which because it reports to the European Commission lacks the necessary independence to investigate fraud. We will also give it disciplinary powers.
   
   
3. We will vote to veto provisions that grant immunity from legal proceedings to all officials for their actions while they are in office, even after they have left office.
   
   
4. Payment of salaries, expenses, office costs and employment of staff in the EU will be benchmarked against best practise of parliamentary bodies around the world for openness and transparency.

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Referendum Now! (Lisbon Treaty)

There is a crisis of democratic legitimacy in the European Union. The flaws in the European project were exposed when the European Constitution was first rejected and then its replacement, the Lisbon Treaty ran in to trouble. Strikingly, while a series of national parliaments chose to vote their approval, both the Constitution and Treaty failed when the public in some member states were asked their views. The peoples of Europe do not want a new political entity foisted on them.

The Christian Party - Christian Peoples Alliance intends to listen to the deep concerns of the public, who neither want a super-state nor believe that European elites are truly committed to liberty. We understand that the European ideals held by the Christian founders of the EU were based on convictions about the proper, limited spheres of government action and the space due to civil society. This Christian idea of subsidiarity has been replaced by the bureaucratic fiction of a European 'home' with a nascent state that has no political, legal or cultural anchorage.

The fundamental flaw is clear to see. The peoples of the European Union have never been given a proper say about the destination the politicians have chosen to go in. As a consequence, the European Union not only has ended up possessing such symbols of statehood as its own flag, anthem, motto and annual official holiday. It now has its own government, with a legislature, executive and judiciary, its own President, its own citizens and citizenship, its own human and civil rights code, its own currency, economic policy and revenue, its own international treaty-making powers, foreign policy, foreign minister, diplomatic corps and United Nations voice, its own crime and justice code and Public Prosecutor. Can anyone concede that the public truly knew this was what they were signing up to?

The unwillingness of European politicians to understand the mood is revealed by the identikit nature of the EU Constitution and the Lisbon Treaty. The content of the Constitutional Treaty and the Lisbon Treaty is almost completely the same. Both embrace important institutional innovations and substantial deepening of the integration process. This is why the CP-CPA would hold a national referendum on Lisbon.

We believe important questions require answering over the Treaty, especially over claims it will improve 'efficiency'. For example, all kinds of existing and new Presidencies are going to function next to – and in competition with - each other: the Commission President, the new permanent President of the European Council, the new High Representative for Foreign Affairs as President of the Foreign Affairs Council, and the rotating team Presidency of the other Council formations. What each of these Presidencies is supposed to do has not been clearly defined, and they might encroach on each other's turf.

The total picture of the Treaty is one of less transparency. As the Lisbon Treaty makes changes to - and thus complicates - the existing Treaties, the whole has become even more incomprehensible. All kinds of Protocols, Declarations, transitional provisions and exceptions have been included. There have been some improvements in democratic accountability - in particular the idea of co-decision-making between member states and the European Parliament in the passing of legislation and the all-important budget. We welcome the improved position of the national parliaments in the decision-making process. But the overall picture is murky, not clear.

As to the deepening of the integration process that the Lisbon Treaty brings about, the British public have a right to decide whether new competences should be transferred to the EU. At the moment, every member state must be agreed on police and judicial cooperation before policy is made. But by abolishing the pillar structure, criminal matters will now be decided on by Qualified Majority Voting (QMV) instead of unanimity. The content and applicability of the competences in the area of freedom, security and justice are also changed under Lisbon – having been more broadly formulated. We see this too in asylum and immigration. And we see the Lisbon Treaty transferring new competences where QMV will be applied in areas such as intellectual property rights, sport, tourism, space, energy, civil protection and administrative integration. Lastly, integration in foreign and security policy will be further intensified by the creation of the (potentially) important figure of the High Representative, who will be supported by their own civil service.

Many Christians across all denominations see a divergence away from the core founding principles of the EU in these developments. They see that instead of true convictions and ideals, a new pragmatic attitude has been allowed to prevail. This managerialism compromises on essential human, moral and social values on the basis of the lowest common denominator. And it has now embedded itself as a dominant culture in European affairs, together with the relegation of the expression of individual religious convictions to the private and subjective sphere. The experience of many Christians within the EU is that this lowest common denominator approach also coincides with the secular and relativist tradition within Europe - that which denies moral absolutes with an objective basis - rather than the Christian view. Such an approach has ended up with Christians being denied the right to intervene in public debates. It also sees their contribution dismissed as an attempt to protect unjustified privileges, such as, for example, the right to employ people who support the ethos of a Christian institution.
 
In the European Parliament, we will

1. Press for full openness and accountability by lawmakers, through the European Council process, through ensuring all legislation is properly scrutinised in the European Parliament and through the basic principle that all political actions must be rendered accountable at the ballot box.
   
   
2. Transform the existing secularist, positivistic and relativist philosophy in the European political culture by promoting a biblical worldview. Secularist tendencies will not vanish by ignoring them or simply by criticizing them from the margins or from outside the political process. The CP-CPA is committed to critical engagement from within.
   
   
3. Work with other Christians in reversing successive decisions which have undermined the family based on marriage, the right to life from the moment of conception to natural death, the sacredness of the Sabbath and the right of faith institutions to maintain and promote their ethos, including schools.
   
   
4. The CP-CPA will oppose creeping interference in the rights of member states. For example, we will oppose attempts to extend the use of the draft Equalities Directive that outlaws discrimination in the provision of goods and services. It must not be used to force member states to treat same sex civil partnerships as equivalent to marriage, nor to force Christian schools to change their values by employing those who disagree with those values.

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