CHURCH-BUSINESS DIALOGUE

Mrs. Ploni Robbers van Berkel, member of the Presidium of the Conference of European Churches, Mgr. Van Luyn, Vice President of the Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Community and Dr. H. Onno Ruding, President of the International Christian Union of Business Executives, signed the following declaration on behalf of the participants at a meeting called by the Conference of European Churches (CEC), the Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Community (COMECE) and the International Christian Union of Business Executives (UNIAPAC).

The meeting took place in Brussels on 9 February, 2001. It was called to share ideas, concerns and hopes on how business executives can balance their responsibilities between their home life and their work.

"This meeting is a significant event in itself, and we all welcome this opportunity to get together and renew our fruitful contacts. Considering that subsidiarity is one of the great principles developed in the social teaching of Christian churches, we highly recommend that this discussion be continued. Likewise we encourage similar meetings to be held in a national framework.

"We listened with great attention to the speech given by Mrs. Clotuche from the European Commission. We are very much convinced that European social values are part of our heritage and should be nourished by our Christian faith. In this context we would like to have an exchange of views with representatives of EU institutions.

"We also wish to broaden this kind of dialogue to include other interested parties, among which are Christian workers' and employees' movements. We see on the basis of our spiritual and ethical foundation a prospect for enlarging the scope of our future reflections.

"We consider that the following recommendations could be circulated to our members through our usual channels of communication:

1. "Churches should provide their members with platforms to allow for discussions on life and work balance both at national and local levels and inject the core values of Christianity into these discussions. Christian business people have a special opportunity to help church representatives and the business community at large to understand each other in order to promote human dignity and serve the common good.

2. "Some companies are clearly conscious of their social responsibility and more companies need to be encouraged to follow their example. To this end, best practices could be collected and published. Businesses should play a more supportive role in their communities and the neighbourhoods where they operate. Through their large and local networks, churches can be natural partners in this endeavour.

3. "The responsibility of both business leaders and workers is much broader and deeper than their economic roles. Their ultimate accountability is to God. They therefore have responsibilities towards their neighbours and the community at large, including the marginalised and the outcast.

4. "Within these wider responsibilities, all those influencing business life have a challenge to make work creative, satisfying and a way of developing human potential. This is one aspect of respecting the whole dimension of the dignity of the person."