Ruadhán Jones
The position of EU Special Envoy on Freedom of Religion risks becoming “all talk and no substance” without the requisite funding and staffing, a spokesperson for a charity for persecuted Christians said.
The statement came after a Brussels based EU bishops’ conference criticised the envoy’s “limited mandate and resources”, but welcomed the appointment of a new envoy for the first time since 2019.
Calling
Dr Michael Kinsella, National Director of Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) Ireland, joined the bishops in calling for increased strengthening of the position.
“Realistically, for any legislation or regulation or enforcement to have any teeth, there must be the requisite staffing of competent and sensitised staff to ensure that what’s noticed is passed on,” Dr Kinsella said. “There’s little point in having a post like that if it doesn’t have the means by which it can carry out its tasks.”
He said the position risks becoming “overly bureaucratised” and “a sop in which there’s all talk and no substance when it comes to the issues they’re meant to defend”.
However, he welcomed the appointment of new envoy Christos Stylianides, saying the position “provides a medium through which the very sensitive and urgent concerns of a highly vulnerable population can be carried to much more effective and diplomatic ethical channels”.
Freedom
Dr Kinsella described religious freedom and religious persecution as “highly, highly important issues that act as an ethical and political barometer of the democratic health of a nation”.
The envoy can ensure that the institutions which are there to serve, protect and represent European peoples are “sensitised” to the issue of religious persecution, he said.
But Dr Kinsella said that he is afraid of the position’s “politicisation”, that representation on religious concerns will be conditional on acceptance of progressive ideologies.