Brussels, 26th of July 2024
Dear Friends,
Today, we celebrate the feast day of Saints Anne and Joachim, the parents of the Virgin Mary. Accordingly, this Sunday is the World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly, emphasising their dignity and their role in intergenerational solidarity. We repeat the theme from this year from the Psalms chosen by Pope Francis: “do not cast me off in my old age” (cf. Ps 71:9).
In this letter, we would like to tell you about our activities over the last few months.
Not long after Easter, we travelled to Rome for the annual conference on the abolition of surrogacy. One year removed from the publication of the Casablanca Declaration, this conference showed the broad coalition that we have helped build across faiths, cultural backgrounds, and political preferences. The widespread and global nature of wombs for rent requires us to build bridges with people and groups that do not align on every other issue. Around the actual conference activities, we met with the Holy Father Pope Francis and Secretary of State for the Holy See Pietro Parolin to discuss the campaign. The impressive number of speakers featured academics, researchers, lawyers, and political representatives. It was heartening that, on one of the panels, a group of Italian parliamentarians from across the political spectrum spoke about their opposition to surrogacy. We continue to work, on behalf of mother and child, towards a universal abolition of this practice, as the Casablanca Declaration proposes.
The month of May brought our Spring Board Meeting in beautiful Brno, Czech Republic. We are so grateful to have been hosted by our Czech members the Family Union, as well as to have been joined by new members from Spain, Asociación Católica de Propagandistas (ACdP). We also updated the status of our organisation in San Marino as full members. Our resolution, approved on International Day of Families, tackled one of today’s most pivotal topics: the ecological transition. We reaffirmed in the resolution that “the family is the best ally to secure livelihoods, protect biodiversity and to combat environmental degradation promoting a collective sense of responsibility and climate-neutral consumption”. We know that the protection of the Creation and the protection of the family come hand-in-hand. European institutions and member states should approach this transition with the clarity that without children, there is no future. To invest in the family is to invest in the common good and in the future of the planet and our communities.
Millions of European voters will have had their families at the forefront of their minds as they elected their new MPs in June. We welcome the new legislature with a policy toolkit and an open letter to incoming MEPs. The letter established our principal policy priorities: the demographic winter, family as an investment, work-family balance, protection of children, and the ecological transition. You may have received communication from our Senior Policy Officer Marta Fernandez de Cordoba who has been tireless in engaging with MEPs on FAFCE’s issues, booking meetings with new representatives and their staff. Please get in touch with us via this email if you are yet to inform us of MEPs from your home countries that you feel we must particularly make contact with.
As MEPs came to Brussels after the elections, we also began preparations for the Hungarian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, which began in July. We welcomed the fact that they included the demographic winter as a top priority. I have written opinion articles in English and Spanish for the media to reflect on the opportunity that this presents to treat demography as a transversal issue for European institutions and member states. An aging population and plummeting birth rates are resulting in an existential crisis for our continent. The causes don’t just lie in the social and economic hardships of our time, but also in the culture of consumption and loneliness. Through our member organisations, we see a daily reminder that networks of families provide the intergenerational solidarity that our societies so desperately need. We continue to work with institutions at the European level for a paradigm shift, considering the family as an investment for the common good, not a cost. Without the family, there is no future.
We have also been aware of national policies that have threatened family and life. While such policies are sadly numerous across countries, it is worth raising the debate currently gripping Albania. The Pro Family and Life Coalition in Albania have been bravely campaigning against the draft law On Sexual and Reproductive Health. We wrote to the Albanian Parliament and its Prime Minister to explain the gravity of the matter. This legislation is an affront to human dignity. Paving the way for surrogacy, abortion, and sterilisation, it has been opposed by medical and legal experts. We urge Albanian representatives to withdraw the law and protect this beautiful country from an ethical deterioration. As I wrote in the letter, the law “risks reducing Albania to a marketplace of human procreation, with no proposals for letting life flourish through the family”.
In many of our home countries election campaigns are underway or have recently finished. We would like to thank you for engaging in the democratic processes to ensure the voice of the family is heard loud and clear. Last week we were in Strasbourg for the final plenary until the summer break, where key decisions for Europe were taken. MEPs voted for Metsola’s second term as President of the chamber, while the President of the European Commission Ursula Von der Leyen was re-elected. We also witnessed announcements on the appointments of elected representatives to committees. Let’s work so that the ongoing institutional transitions in member states and at the European level lead to a renewed prioritisation in the family as the foundation of society.
We have also been engaging at the United Nations level. Teresa Gerns, our Policy Officer with responsibility for the Council of Europe and the UN, has been in Geneva, Switzerland for many events related to the family, providing her expertise at the UN. We are awaiting confirmation to become a member of the The United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). We are excited to have made more global connections with people and organisations with whom there is opportunity for collaboration on shared principles.
Coalition building has been central to our work with the Shield Platform. Project Manager Maria Waszkiewicz has been instrumental in the formation of a group of more than 30 organisations around Europe who raise awareness on the harms of pornography. You can read about the advocacy document that the Shield Platform published, with the aim of informing politicians of the destruction of pornography and the need to protect children.
Our Autumn Board Meeting will take place in Brussels from the 5th to 7th of November. We look forward to communicating in more detail what we have been planning, what our resolution will focus on, and who will be joining us.
Dear Friends,
We must continue and grow our work. We are faced with a Europe still beleaguered by war, a disregard for dignity, and economic uncertainty. When extremes and ideological conflicts heighten, we must hold fast to the reality that we experience in our day-to-day. It is the family that nurtures the bonds between people, not because they are valuable as consumers, but because all human life contains inherent dignity. On July 11th, the Church remembered Saint Benedict, the Patron Saint of Europe. While Europe is nothing without Christian principles, we still need your help as we remind European institutions and member states of the family’s contribution to the common good. We call on your generosity to support FAFCE’s mission, particularly as we do not receive any public funding, depending directly on your donations. Please do not hesitate contribute. Keep abreast of our activities via our website and share our articles on social media. I trust you will join me in thanking our dedicated staff in Brussels in these busy times.
We wish you a restful summer,
Vincenzo Bassi
President
