Whither European Christian Democracy?

First Quarter 2002

by William A. Harper and Timothy R. Sherratt

Real political parties struggling to embody the Christian message in a harsh political environment: this is what we encountered in interviews conducted with Christian Democrats across Europe last spring. Two questions seemed uppermost on everyone's agenda: 1) How can we respond responsibly to significant changes in the make-up and views of our supporting constituency? 2) How can we retain or gain elected office and influence without jettisoning our spiritual and philosophical heritage?

The country that perhaps best illustrates how these questions are being answered is The Netherlands, which has the longest and one of the strongest traditions of Christian democratic practice in Europe. For almost 100 years, starting late in the nineteenth century, it was home to a cluster of three Christian political partie—one Catholic, two Protestant—each with its own distinct confessional identity and loyal core of supporters. By the mid-1970s, the conditions which had allowed the three parties to prosper and cooperate had eroded or disappeared: the Christian community was no longer threatened by public exclusion or discrimination and was much diminished in numbers, degree of orthodoxy, and obedience to ecclesiastical direction. Sensing a threat to their long-term viability as separate political parties, the three merged into the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) in 1980.

The new formula, designed to unite Christians under a broad, ecumenical umbrella, was electorally successful for a short time: most Dutch governments from the early 1980s into the 1990s were led by the CDA. But the new party was soon forced to revisit the question of survival. This time the issue was not a politically divided Christian community, but an electorate that either could not comprehend or was uncomfortable with traditional Christian democratic modes of expression.

The CDA's response was to take the initiative of translating its ideals and policies so that even non-Christians could see past the source and resonate with the substance. There are now Muslims, for example, who support the CDA because they appreciate its staunch support of cultural pluralism. Whatever their private longing for the old confessional formula, the party's research team and sympathetic academics, such as Hans-Martien ten Napel, seem convinced that this was the only realistic way for the party to avoid political irrelevance. Others, such as Senator Karl Veling of the Christian Union, a new party of the older confessional type, no longer consider the CDA to be a Christian party.

For Christian Democrats across Europe, the attempt to reconcile founding principles, core supporters, new voters, and political relevance has been given an added layer of complexity and opportunity by the European Union (EU). The result is what we would term "trans-confessional" Christian democracy, as evidenced in the European People's Party (EPP), which unites Christian Democrats and others in the European Parliament.

In January 2001, at its Berlin Congress, the EPP approved its "Union of Values," insisting that "we ultimately derive our strength and motivation from our values (freedom and responsibility, dignity of the human person, solidarity, justice and the rule of law), which are a whole vision of life, and cannot be separated from each other." The party went on to affirm the principle of subsidiarity as the "key principle of decentralization, federalism, and European integration."

So far, so good. But these same values prove remarkably flexible when the confessions that undergird them have been set in the background. We talked with Allejandro Agag, General Secretary of the EPP. To begin with, Agag is a Spanish Liberal, not a Christian Democrat. More importantly, the same EPP leadership, which agreed on the Union of Values, has embarked on an aggressive campaign of party enlargement, one that has already brought both the British Conservatives and the Forza Italia—neither a bastion of Christian democratic thinking—under the EPP umbrella. The goal, Agag told us, is a "centrist" not a "rightist" orientation to keep the party "relevant." This type of engagement, he conceded, means the loss of Christian democratic "purity" but not its "essence."

Is the flexibility of the EPP's Union of Values a confirmation of the Christian truth that good ideas transcend denominational boundaries? Does it confirm the wisdom of former CDA leader Ruud Lubbers' careful use of "trans-Christian" words to win support for legislation? Or does such "flexibility" indicate a surrender to political realities which, whatever its short-term appeal, will set Christian Democracy adrift from its confessional moorings into a sea of bland, centrist politics? Time will tell, and in The Netherlands this challenge is as fresh as the rising leadership of Jan Peter Balkenende in the CDA, where, since October, he is being asked to reinvigorate his party.

—Professors Harper and Sherratt teach in the Political Studies Department at Gordon College, Wenham, Massachusetts.