Quakers, Europe and Art Nouveau

As negotiations for Brexit continue – why does Europe matter more than ever? Rosemary Field considers the question and reflects on a visit to the Quaker Council for European Affairs in Brussels

Do you know of a room in which Quakers meet to worship where the walls are papered with embossed wallpaper, hand painted in gold? There is such a room, and it’s in Quaker House, Brussels, at the heart of the ministry of the Quaker Council for European Affairs (QCEA). It’s where Brussels Quakers meet on a Sunday and where, increasingly, ‘quiet diplomacy’ takes place.

The room is one of three domestic-sized rooms that provide both a beautiful and relaxed setting for QCEA to host informal meetings for governments, EU officials and others concerned with Europe-wide affairs. In April 2016, for example, QCEA brought European policy makers together with representatives from the Serbian minority in Croatia and the Croatian minority in Serbia for a week of reconciliation and engagement.

The interior of Quaker House is recognised as a treasure of Brussels Art Nouveau. The house was built in 1899 as the home and office of a stockbroker, and Quakers have owned the building since 1985. Some years ago the City of Brussels supported major refurbishment, including sourcing original patterns and designs from Japan and the three-month project to paint the gold wallpaper of one room. This is not normally what Quakers would see as a priority, but here these splendid surroundings are being put to good use. Besides, as you enter the dark panelled hallway and peer up broad stairs that sweep up three floors you sense 120 years of European history. How this building contrasts with the shiny steel and glass of the vast twenty-first century EU buildings!

The QCEA study tour

When I visited Quaker House I joined the QCEA study tour (another aspect of the QCEA’s ministry and outreach) because I wanted to learn about QCEA, the EU and the Council of Europe. Our group ranged from students to retired people, who came together from Palestine, Afghanistan, Russia, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland and Britain.

We met EU officials and Molly Scott Cato, a Quaker and Green Party MEP for the South West of England and Gibraltar. The officials seemed truly sad and bewildered by Britain’s decision to leave the EU. At the same time, I felt the continuing inspiration of the European Union, which has worked for over sixty years towards, in the words of the Nobel Peace prize citation in 2012, ‘the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe’… ‘transforming most of Europe from a continent of war to a continent of peace’.

Staff in the EU described for us the painstaking procedure for developing and agreeing new policies, which become EU law. Each may take eighteen months, or more, of meetings of the Council of all twenty-eight countries – first officials, then ambassadors, then ministers, each representing the interests of their governments.

After this long process there is often no need for a vote in Council, as agreement is unanimous, each country having had their say. Something like a protracted Quaker Meeting for Worship for Business?

A Quaker who works in the European Commission described the environment as similar to that of Quakers in its openness, questioning, consultation and collegiality. Decisions take time but the result is well founded: ‘the more you talk, the more solid the basis you build.’

The 751 MEPs vote on proposed EU legislation, but much of their work is done in committee. Molly Scott Cato explained her priorities: the abolition of nuclear weapons, the connection between nuclear weapons and nuclear power, climate change, opposing trade treaties, and tax justice.

Why does the EU matter?

Why does the EU matter? It exerts influence in the world through international agreements, development cooperation, foreign and security policy. It is the world’s largest donor of humanitarian aid. The EU has the opportunity to make a significant impact on climate change, economic and social justice and global peace. And many of its values – human rights, compassion and justice – underpin our European identity.

QCEA also works with the Council of Europe, based in Strasbourg, a separate organisation and complementary to the EU. It covers 820 million people and works with its forty-seven member states (which include Russia, Turkey and Azerbaijan) to strengthen human rights, democracy and the rule of law. One way it does this is through the European Court of Human Rights, which oversees the implementation of the European Convention on Human Rights and makes judgements about violations.

In 2016 nearly a quarter of violations concerned the right to a fair hearing, about a fifth torture or inhuman or degrading treatment, and a further fifth the right to liberty and security. Much of the inhuman treatment occurs in prisons and we met one of the forty-seven judges, a Swedish woman, whose work includes applications from Russian prisoners. She told us that, while some of the applicants ‘may not be very nice people who have committed terrible crimes’, they have human rights just as much as anyone else and her job is to rule on whether their human rights have been breached.

Discerning priorities

Whatever the future holds, the Quaker Council for European Affairs is there in Brussels working in collaboration with many other faith groups and NGOs. Its small team works in a dedicated and Quakerly way through quiet diplomacy and carefully chosen projects.

They need to discern priorities: What are the main humanitarian risks that Europe faces? What are the areas where Quakers have concerns? What impact can QCEA have? They promote religious values in a secular society, seeking to be open to others’ views and to understand rather than to condemn. One member of the QCEA team referred to government policies on immigration and commented: ‘Government officials are not uncaring, but generally overwhelmed.’

The Lisbon Treaty mandates that the EU has regular dialogue with religious and faith groups and QCEA believes that communication is more effective where faith groups are linked through networks, thus helping to avoid the risk of ‘Euro bubble babble’. Current work includes a project to prepare material for policy makers on alternatives to settling disputes by conflict and another to connect people working on grassroots forced migration projects.

And what’s the difference they make? It’s here, now, in Quaker House, Brussels. I sensed that the Spirit is here, at work for peace, reconciliation, human rights and social justice – and, into the future? This is service that requires faith and courage, and a long-term view.

A priest from the Episcopal Church, who acts as a policy adviser for Human Rights without Frontiers, said that he often wonders if the day-to-day work is making a difference, but then EU laws change and progress is made. Quakers and other faith groups are part of that, and part of something larger, not yet foreseen. The priest acknowledged this when he quoted Milan Kundera, who wrote that we plant crops that we will never harvest.

Further information: www.qcea.org

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Comments

Dear Rosemary, thank you for your thoughtful and informative report. As the implications of Brexit become clearer I hope that we will have the opportunity to reconsider. Even if we do leave the EU I hope that QCEA will continue as a Quaker representative af all the European Quakers.
Best wishes
Fenwick Kirton-Darling

By Fenwick on 15th March 2018 - 10:27

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Rosemary
I love the way you set the current inspiring (and tough!) Quaker work of deep research, humane and creative reconciliation, and support of the most vulnerable and marginalised people in a context of surroundings which are gracefully restored and give value to the human desire for beauty with a sense of the history of European art. How much hope the Quaker presence gives us in the midst of the work of the EU!

By AnniqueS on 15th March 2018 - 22:11

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