RATIONALE FOR REGIONAL OUTREACH:
Whilst the core work of the EUMS would be based around member nations of the EU, it is important from the outset to involve as Associate members, those countries that adjoin the European Union, or its neighbouring seas and oceans, including the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, the Atlantic Ocean and the Caspian Sea. Throughout all these regions different European countries have important interests and a vital stake in ensuring that peace prevails throughout the area, for commercial, diplomatic, historic and moral reasons. If instability and conflict prevails in any one of these regions Europe itself, ultimately, also suffers, and cannot stand back and watch from behind guarded frontiers and wash its hands in indifference. Therefore the work of the EUMS would be proactive in offering to help resolve sometimes longstanding conflicts in these regions also.
Liaison with Other organisations:
The EUMS would work in concert with the United Nations, the European Council and other bodies which promote peace and justice worldwide. It would seek to support their work rather to replace it, and would deal with specific regional disputes affecting Europe and European and Mediterranean region nations.
RELATIONSHIP WITH RELIGIOUS ORGANISATIONS:
It is to be hoped that all religious organizations active in European countries, and their neighbors, would endorse and support the good work of the EUMS, since all bona fide religious traditions known to mankind have at their innermost heart the ambition to foster a climate of peace, prosperity and love among the citizens of the planet. At the heart of European tradition and culture and spiritual lineage, the Christian tradition, has specifically endorsed peace as a supreme virtue, and peacemaking as a moral duty for all Christians. Uniquely, in Europe, there is also the Vatican, the worldwide centre of the Roman Catholic Church, which includes many millions of believers in Europe, as well as globally - which state would be hoped to become an Associate Member of the EUMS in its own right, and thus be able to share some of its own unique channels for peacemaking to the advancement of the work of the EUMS in general. Likewise Protestant and Orthodox Christianity have both arisen in European and Mediterranean regions, and have likewise a long and profound tradition of peacemaking and conflict prevention. Some historic churches have gone so far as to embrace complete pacifism as a manifestation of their faith. Their support for the work of the EUMS would be a way of helping to ground their peaceful ideals in pragmatic social and political reality. Other religions active in European countries which also advocate peace and goodwill and harmony between its citizens would also be encouraged to support the work of the EUMS, including Islam, Buddhism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, Sikhism, Hinduism, Bahaism, Judaism, Shintoism, Taoism, Freemasonry, Paganism, New Age beliefs etc. In short the entire spectrum of the world’s religions, which find in Europe a microcosmic, or important echo, would be acknowledged as to their constituting part of Europe’s complex mosaic of identities and communities; positive working would be encouraged between all such groups, and their collective support for the work of the EUMS would be likewise encouraged pragmatically. Likewise the EUMS would encourage the support of existing interfaith peace organisations which are doing such good work across Europe to encourage a climate of interfaith dialogue, respect and tolerance between faith communities. The work of the EUMS would however be secular, as are the institutions of the EU in general, but sympathetic to the common spiritual ideals and aspirations of all its citizens, and above all to their aspirations towards peace, security and prosperity, to which end the EU itself was founded. While some debates have been held recently as to whether the acknowledgement of the existence of God, (and if so, which God - Christian or generic) should be referenced in the proposed European Constitution, the proposed EUMS would remain positively neutral in this debate and inclined towards the argument that since any Creator worthy of genuine worship or acknowledgement, would assuredly endorse peaceful working relationships and living conditions for mankind, the best way for Europe to acknowledge the Creator would be to genuinely work for peace in our society, and among our neighbours. By founding the EUMS the citizens and Governments of Europe are moving this debate over the role of God in our constitution to a more sophisticated level of discourse, as befits those bequeathed the intellectual heritage of Socratic thought and the combination of freedom of rational inquiry, together with a profound commitment to ethical action, which constitutes the heritage of classical European philosophy to all subsequent religious formulations of belief.
RELATIONS WITH POLITICAL PARTIES AND MOVEMENTS:
The work of the EUMS would be non party-political, and unbiased in its operations, as befits a project of the European Union as a whole, and effectively as a department of the European Union’s civil service. It would expect the support and goodwill of all bona fide European Union political parties and movements, since all bona fide democratic political parties and their elected representatives are supposed to be by definition committed to peace and the non-violent resolution of conflicts. In its pre-launch phase, the EUMS would anticipate the support of all major political parties in EU nations, both those in government and those in opposition, as a matter of common sense, and as showing a way forward for the work of the Union as a whole in the public imagination and as a way of fostering a more positive image for the work of the EU in general. For those parties traditionally oriented in support of the work of the EU (liberal democratic parties, moderate socialist parties, and moderate conservative parties) strong support for the proposal and launch of the EUMS would be anticipated. For those parties with a more critical position against the work of the EU (nationalist or limitationist orientations) support could also be expected as it would be giving the EU a more useful role in the public eye that interfering in e.g. the nomenclature of the sizes of tomatoes or bananas (which the founders of the EU surely never envisaged). For those parties with a more environmentalist outlook (e.g. green parties) there could be expected also strong support since the promotion of peace and international concord remains a central plank of their outlook, given that environmental destruction is often a side effect of wars, and resource scarcity a prime cause of wars and conflict). It is to be hoped, in sum, that politicians of stature and vision, statesmen and women concerned about the well being of European civilisation unto future generations, will endorse and support enthusiastically the long term vision of the work of EUMS and give its birth and creation all assistance possible in their national legislatures as well as in the formal European Union institutions necessary to bring it into existence in as creative and effective and rapid a way as possible.
RELATIONSHIP WITH MILITARY NETWORKS
The EUMS would maintain proper professional relations with military alliances as long as they genuinely work for peace and only use military force as an absolute last resort, such as NATO, whilst making it clear that the terms of reference of the EUMS are at variance with all such military alliances, either existing now or in the future - namely the prevention of armed conflict, and the resolution of disputes which may already have escalated into armed conflict, and the preemptive non-violent resolution of conflicts which have the potential in time to become violent. IIPSGP has also a proposal a supplementary idea, that a NATO Intra-National Mediation Service be set up for countries in NATO who are experiencing civil conflicts, such as Turkey
RELATIONSHIP WITH NON GOVERNMENTAL ORGANISATIONS SECTOR:
It is to be hoped and anticipated that the project of the EUMS would receive the strongest possible support form the NGO sector across Europe - e.g. women’s organisations, environmentalist organisations, human rights groups, peace organisations, the cultural sector, educational and academic sector, scientific, tourism, business sector, community development sectors etc. This is because all such sectors stand to benefit from the existence of a secure mechanism in place at the heart of the European Union which prevents conflict, war and violence taking place either between European nations, or on its borders or environs, either presently, or in the future. The mechanisms and institutions of civil society, in all their complexity and interconnectedness, stand to gain lasting benefits from the work of the EUMS - economically, spiritually, socially and pragmatically.
OFFICIAL LANGUAGES:
The three working languages of the EUMS would be English, French, and German but translation services would be provided for the translation of all key documentation from other member countries as appropriate.
RELATIONSHIP WITH OTHER NON-EUROPEAN AND NON-MEDITERRANEAN COUNTRIES:
Other countries internationally experiencing conflict, either intra-state or inter-state would also have the opportunity to refer their own disputes for settling within the framework of the EUMS, should occasion arise. In addition, other world regions would be encouraged to establish their own regional Mediation Services.