EU: Trust shaken by cartoons crisis

The European Union today said the mutual trusts between religious communities had been badly damaged by the recent crisis over the Prophet Mohammed drawings, and called the furore a “most regrettable development”.

The EU reiterated, however, that freedom of expression was a nonnegotiable value, and expressed solidarity with the people of the member states where violence has erupted following the publication of the cartoons, first in a Danish newspaper and then in media worldwide.

“The controversy represents a most regrettable development because it touches upon something that the member states have striven for many years. We have all sought a reciprocal trust and respect between the religious communities in our various countries. Now this trust … appears to have been badly shaken,” said Hans Winkler, Austria’s state secretary for European affairs. Austria holds the rotating EU presidency.

Protests over the cartoons have swept the Muslim world. Islam widely holds that representations of Mohammed are banned for fear they could lead to idolatry.

“We must ask ourselves what has gone wrong and what can be done to prevent such occurrences in the future,” Winkler told the European Parliament, adding that freedom of speech must be exercised with responsibility and sensitivity to other people’s cultural and religious values.

The EU’s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, is on a tour of Middle East countries in an attempt to calm the anger over caricatures, including one depicting Mohammed wearing a turban shaped like a bomb.

EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said that, while peaceful protests by Muslims must be respected, violence damages relations between Europe and the Islamic world.

“The Commission condemns in the strongest possible terms the violence perpetrated against our offices in Gaza and against the mission of the member states, in particular those of Denmark. It is ironic that the aim of these missions is to bring real benefits to the lives of the people in the host countries,” Barroso said.

He expressed solidarity with Danes, calling them “the people who rightly enjoy the reputation as being amongst the most open and tolerant, not just in Europe, but in the world”.

The head of the largest political grouping in the EU assembly said the protests in the Muslim world, which have claimed several lives, have not been spontaneous.

“They were organised by repressive regimes months after the publication of the cartoons,” said Hans-Gert Poettering, chairman of the conservative European People’s Party.

Poettering proposed setting up an EU committee of experts that would review material used in European textbooks to make sure they promote European values and at the same type do not contain religious stereotypes or prejudice.

A delegation from the Danish Parliament took part in the EU assembly sitting today.