Barroso praises Church role in EU integration

(BUCHAREST) - European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso hailed on Thursday the role played by the Church in encouraging closer European integration, at a major ecumenical conference in Romania.

"The European Commission has always recognised the commitment of Christian churches, which since the beginning have gone along with and encouraged the great adventure of building Europe," Barroso told participants at the third European Ecumenical Assembly.

"The churches' contribution to the European unification process is even more relevant when looked at in an ecumenical spirit," he added.

Barroso said that a "(European) Union reduced to its geographical and economic dimensions would lack unity" and called for a "sharing of values" which alone could give substance to a political entity like the EU.

He also praised a new reform treaty to replace the EU's failed constitution that will be discussed among EU foreign ministers in Portugal on Friday.

The treaty will allow the EU to "defend and promote common values and interests that are vital on the global scale," Barroso said.

It will also enable "a better functioning of institutions that will make Europe more democratic, more transparent and more efficient," he added.

Barroso, in Romania for two days, was to address the Romanian parliament Thursday afternoon.