The European Union as an Embodiment of the Christian Democratic Project

This paper seeks to develop a theoretical framework for understanding the way in which the relations between politics and religion are structured within the framework of the European Union. The argument advanced is that, although it is common to assume that European institutions provide a bulwark for the protection of the principles of ‘secularism’ and ‘laïcité’, a more adequate category for describing the the European Union as it exists today is offered by an ideal-typical notion of ‘Christian Democracy’. In order to substantiate this thesis, the paper focuses on the discussion of a number of concrete features of the institutional structure of the European Union that do not seem to fit coherently with traditional definitions of the notions of secularism and laïcité, but on the contrary resonate closely with the way in which the notion of ‘Christian Democracy’ is understood in the thought of some of its most representative exponents, such as Luigi Sturzo, Alcide De Gasperi and Jacques Maritain.