Religion and the Public Order of the European Union

Religion and the Public Order of the European Union 
Ronan McCrea
Oxford University Press 2011 

Religion and the Public Order of the European Union offers the first comprehensive account of the role of religion within the public order of the European Union. He examines the facilitation and protection of individual and institutional religious freedom in EU law and the means through which the Union facilitates religious input and influence over law. Identifying the limitations on religious influence over law and politics that have been required by the Union, it demonstrates how such limitations have been identified as fundamental elements of the public order and prerequisites EU membership.

The Union seeks to balance its predominantly Christian religious heritage with an equally strong secular and humanist by facilitating religion as a form of cultural identity while simultaneously limiting its political influence. Such balancing takes place in the context of the Union’s limited legitimacy and its commitment to respect for Member State cultural autonomy. Deference towards the cultural role of religion at Member State level enables culturally-entrenched religions to exercise a greater degree of influence within the Union’s public order than “outsider” faiths that lack a comparable cultural role. Placing the Union’s approach to religion in the context of broader historical and sociological trends around religion in Europe and of contemporary debates around secularism, equal treatment, and the role of Islam in Europe, McCrea sheds light on the interaction between religion and EU law in the face of a shifting religious demographic.

Features

• The first comprehensive account of the role of religion within the public order of the EU and its limitations 
• Covers areas outside existing literature, analysing the influence of religion over substantive law-making within the EU, the accommodation of religious interests within EU public law, and the adaptation of the EU public order in the face of a shifting religious demographic
• Examines issues like Islam’s role in Europe, and EU religious policy and the Catholic Church

About the Author

Ronan McCrea is Barrister at Law (Republic of Ireland, and England and Wales), and Lecturer in Law, University College London. Formerly he was Lecturer in Law at the School of Law at Reading University. He joined the University of Reading in 2009 from the chambers of Advocate General Poiares Maduro at the European Court of Justice where he worked as referendaire. He was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 2003 and completed pupillage at Matrix Chambers in London. He was called to the Bar of the Republic of Ireland in 2011. He is also a former Legal Officer of the Refugee Legal Centre and a former voluntary associate counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU. He was educated at Trinity College Dublin (LL.B.) and the London School of Economics (M.Sc., Ph.D.).