A Gift Economy for Europe

For politics, that means going beyond abstract measures like GDP and instead creating the conditions for individuals and groups so that they can flourish in solidarity and cooperation with each other. The task for Europe's leaders is neither to restore the broken market nor to remake society through legislation and regulation. Rather, the most pressing problem is how to enable people to nurture and grow those bonds of reciprocity and mutuality.

As the EU's first president, Van Rompuy's main challenge is to transpose this powerful and compelling vision into concrete action at EU and national level.

First, he must argue for a genuine commitment to subsidiarity – devolving power to the most appropriate level – as it strengthens reciprocity and mutuality through solidarity, cooperation and shared ownership of political and socio-economic processes. He must press both the European commission and member-states to decentralise decision- and policy-making to regions, localities and neighbourhoods. Civil society must be given real powers and properly associated to the current debates about economic reform.

Second, Van Rompuy could propose measures to break up and limit the size of big banks, supermarket chains and other corporations which form cartels and exert what economists call monopsony – excessive buying power through market dominance which crowds out small- and medium-sized enterprise. The latter need promotion, as they create more stable employment and better working conditions – a better way to fight soaring youth unemployment in the EU's Mediterranean and eastern countries.

Third, he could draw up reforms of the EU's prohibitively expensive Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) that currently favours large-scale industrial farming. In line with the principles of reciprocity and mutuality, support should go predominantly to small-scale farmers and cooperatives which not only engage in more environmentally sustainable farming but also help preserve the important cultural legacy of Europe's rural economy.

None of this presupposes faith. But the fact that these ideas are advanced by Christians as diverse as Pope Benedict XVI, Archbishop Rowan, Patriarch Kirill, Jon Cruddas MP and Van Rompuy himself underscores the enduring importance of Christian ideas for a gift economy in Europe and elsewhere.

First published in The Guardian