A quick analysis of ‘European values’

During a recent RTÉ radio interview with Brendan O’Connor, Mairead McGuinness was quizzed inter alia about European Union (EU) issues. The former European Commissioner, former First Vice-President of the European Parliament, and erstwhile Fine Gael Presidential candidate, gave a spirited defence of the EU. Conceding that it needed to be much more agile, nonetheless she asserted that “we have the capacity as Europeans do it better, to do it quicker and to be smarter, but not lose our values either.” What she meant by ‘values’ was, of course, European values.

Earlier in the broadcast, O’Connor has contrasted the EU unfavourably with the United States and China on account of the EU’s being slow and dithering in making decisions. McGuinness’s reply was telling: “we’re neither China nor the US nor do we want to be”.  In a nutshell, there you have it.  McGuinness, part of the EU élite, personifies an EU superiority complex, a view that somehow the EU is the ‘best of all’. I’m reminded of remarks by the late and genuinely great Peter Sutherland. Speaking at a think tank event some years ago, ‘Suds’ waxed lyrical about the extraordinary merits of the European Union. I put it to him that perhaps his views were a little over-romanticised. Going into full ‘Eric Cantona mode’, he replied that you’ll get better soup from an onion than from a rose, but that he personally would prefer a rose!

A closer look at ‘European values’

The interview with McGuinness prompted me to look more closely at the concept of European values, to examine it with a view to seeing more precisely what is meant by the term. One useful source of information is an article from May 2025 by Florian Faber, Director of ACT Alliance EU in Brussels, entitled ‘What European Values Really Are – What the EU Treaties Tell Us’. He wrote that “In today’s charged political climate, the phrase ‘European values’ is often thrown around. It surfaces in debates on civil society, migration, democracy and identity.” He went on to say that the clearest articulation of these values is in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU).

It seems that not all civil society organisations are treated the same way”

Interestingly, Faber pointed out that the phrase itself – i.e., ‘European values’ – does not appear verbatim in the treaties. In Faber’s view the term “carries considerable political and symbolic weight.” He wrote that much of the work carried out by civil society organisations – from defending human rights and promoting equality to supporting democratic participation – is directly aligned with the values enshrined in Art. 2.

However, it seems that not all civil society organisations are treated the same way. David Quinn wrote in this newspaper last month that the EU is going to deny all funding to the Federation of Catholic Family Associations in Europe. Clearly, this discriminates against and penalises organisations with a traditional view of the family. How’s that for ‘European values’! Pluralism how are ya.

In a Notre Europe policy paper from April 2022 entitled European values – a debate to be clarified, a struggle to be fought, Thierry Chopin and Lukáš Macek noted that “for several years liberal democracy had been challenged in Europe and elsewhere, in particular under pressure from national-populist and extremist political forces.”

Towards the end of their paper, they make a statement which could be considered problematic on two levels: “Outside the EU, despite the setback of Brexit, the European model continues to shine and inspire”.  First, it’s understandable that they themselves – given their viewpoints – would see Brexit as a ‘setback’, but it was, after all, a decision arrived at democratically. The margin of victory for the ‘Leave’ side, while narrow, was wider than that by which Luis Inácio Lula da Silva defeated Jair Bolsonaro in the 2022 Brazilian presidential election. Second, to say that the European model continues to ‘shine and inspire’ might be overstating things a tad. For example, the EU did not cover itself in glory as regards sharing vaccines with the Global South during the COVID pandemic, now did it?

One of the experts to whom I reached out for the purposes of this article was Prof. Emeritus of Comparative Politics at Queen’s University Belfast, Adrian Guelke. I asked him for any views he might have on the subject of ‘European values’. He said that a problem about constantly talking about ‘values’ – whether you opt to precede it with European, universal, Christian or perhaps even liberal as a description – is that the concept has become formulaic and prompts charges of virtue-signalling or worse, hypocrisy – when people don’t ‘walk the talk’, as the saying goes. Indeed, so strong has the reaction against virtue-signalling become, Guelke added, that vice-signalling by populists of one sort or another has become prevalent. Guelke’s observations are very important because they show that the type of comment made by McGuinness, inferring EU superiority, is quite simply counter-productive.

How much and how rapidly do values change?

In September 2025, Prof. Veronica Anghel of the European University Institute’s Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies in Florence published an article in the Journal of European Public Policy entitled Why the EU is a geopolitical power: wartime enlargement, integration, and reform. She wrote that “Enlargement is revealed not as an act of territorial aggrandisement or normative paternalism, but as a relational process of governance through interdependence. It is in this sense that Europe’s borders, values, and geopolitical identity are continuously made and remade.”

Reading this, I was perturbed by the idea that values were subject to continuous change. Surely any value ‘worth its salt’ is something that endures over time? I contacted her about this, and she suggested taking ‘human dignity’ as a good example, precisely because it feels timeless. Few people in the 1960s or 1970s, she said, would have said they opposed human dignity. Yet the practical meaning of that value was radically narrower than it is today – e.g., about women’s rights, and reproductive autonomy. In Anghel’s view, “values are not static axioms sitting outside history. They are embedded in institutions, laws, policies, and political struggles. Each enlargement round, each constitutional debate, each crisis forces a renegotiation of what those values mean in practice.” She granted that “values should show a degree of continuity, otherwise they lose their anchoring function. But continuity does not mean immobility. Change is a condition of their survival.”

In response, I would suggest that the reason we still find a political theorist like Niccolò Machiavelli of considerable relevance – almost exactly five hundred years after his death – is that he dealt in the largely unchanging ‘currency’ of human nature.

It is often conveniently ignored that so many leaders of the pro-life movement are themselves women”

Also, take the issue of abortion. Yes indeed, it has become much more widespread and the EU even funds abortion through its development aid programmes, a position promoted aggressively i.a. by Scandinavian Member States. However, it remains a highly contentious topic and is likely to remain so. It is often conveniently ignored that so many leaders of the pro-life movement are themselves women. Many people in Europe support abortion, but I would completely refute any suggestion that this access to abortion is a ‘European value’. Similarly with gender. Recently, the European Parliament voted in favour of a resolution emphasising “the importance of the full recognition of trans women as women”. This position may have been endorsed by a majority in the European Parliament, but they don’t ‘own’ European values.

Security and defence

Noted above was an important point in the Notre Europe paper on European values – viz. that a core element thereof was “a relative renunciation of the use of force and a preference for peaceful settlement of conflicts”. This seems to be changing fast and, in a manner very much fraught with danger. Much of this originates with the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. But it is also very much connected with ‘The Donald’ and his manoeuvring to take over Greenland. This has occasioned considerable soul-searching within the ranks of NATO’s EU members.

Central banking

It has been reported in the media that the current head of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, will step down early. Commenting on this, Euro Intelligence wrote that she “did not deny the FT story that she is about to leave her job prematurely; the stated reason is that she wants to give centrist incumbents in the European Council a chance to reappoint her successor, and deny Jordan Bardella or Marine Le Pen (one or other seen as likely to be elected President of France next year) the opportunity”. Euro Intelligence said it thinks “this reason is highly revealing of Europe’s current political and economic culture, whose elites are afraid of the voters”. Might the elites think they’ll do better with ‘European values’ and a stitch-up than with ‘European values’ alone?

Michael Sanfey is a researcher at the Institute of Political Studies, UCP Lisbon.