Renáta Uitz is professor of law and government at the Royal Holloway Law School, University of London, and senior research fellow at the Democracy Institute of Central European University (CEU), Budapest. This post formed part of a keynote address a conference on “FORB and the European Union” sponsored by the Institute for the Study of Freedom of Religion or Belief (ISFORB) at the Evangelical Theological Faculty (ETF Leuven), 7–8 May 2026. It is also based on a presentation at the “Religious Freedom, Flourishing Societies, and the Role of Law” workshop sponsored by the ICLRS at Christ Church, University of Oxford, 27–28 July 2026. Research for this post was supported by the Volkswagen Foundation though the CEU project Towards Illiberal Constitutionalism in East-Central Europe.
The minimum conditions of belonging to the European Union (EU) were recently spelled out by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in the values judgment (Case C-769/22, European Commission v. Hungary (21 April 2026)). Responding to the rule of law crisis, CJEU case law to date has focused on values set out expressly in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) such as the rule of law and respect for fundamental rights. Other contenders for EU values emerging on the heels of the migration crisis include solidarity in the face of religious diversity (based on TEU Article 2) and animal welfare as a rationale for limitations on ritual slaughter (based on Article 13 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU) and Article 37 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (EUCFR)). Christianity (as the defining feature of European culture) is also a prominent contender, with discussions focusing on the EU’s role in protecting Christianity, Christian values, and Christian civilization.
The ongoing contestation about European values is a reminder that the EU has had a complicated relationship with religion. On the one hand, Christian democratic ideas, such as subsidiarity, are deeply embedded in the Union’s constitutional fabric. On the other hand, the proposal to include a reference to Christianity or God crushed the European constitutional project in 2004. The recent rise of illiberal Christian democracy in Europe and national conservativism across the Atlantic has brought religion—and open contestation about religion and its impact on the Union—back to the political agenda. Despite rising political and identity-based social polarization, concern for religious tolerance as a European value has yet to enter the discussion. For the time being, judicial deference to the preferences of local majorities (in the name of subsidiarity) sidelines the protection of religious minorities, pushing EU member states further away from the ideal of societies “in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between women and men prevail” (TEU Article 2).
Defending Christians, Christianity, and Christian Culture in Europe
In November 2025 the second Trump administration’s new National Security Strategy (NSS) proposed saving European civilization from the “real and more stark prospect” of erasure brought on by EU institutions. The NSS echoes concerns raised in illiberal Christian democracy’s European intellectual and political circles. In March 2025 Polish and Hungarian think tanks proposed to reset the EU as a union of sovereign nations; the French version of the report was presented in Paris to representatives of the French right at a November 2025 event organized by the Institute for Political Training (L’Institut de Formation Politique) and the Tocqueville Fellowship (La Bourse Tocqueville)—both of which are committed to educating France’s future elite. The 2024 European Parliament (EP) elections resulted in gains for multiple Euro-skeptic parties adhering to conservative-Christian values. As a result, Hungary’s Fidesz, France’s National Rally, and the Netherlands’ PVV were able to form a new party group in the EP, Patriots for Europem that seeks to reverse the course of European integration in the name of protecting national sovereignty and traditional Christian values.
These political and policy shifts reflect anxiety about Christian values/culture/civilization in Europe, with an increased focus on animosity toward Christianity (Christianophobia) and violence against Christians in national settings where Christians present the historic majority. In January 2026 the annual EP resolution on human rights and democracy urged EU institutions to combat the “persecution of Christians” (para. 83). An additional emphasis on the plight of Eastern Christians (in the resolution’s recital N) is understood to compel the EU “to adopt a firmer stance in its bilateral relations with certain countries in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, where the practice of the Christian faith can lead to imprisonment or death.”
The EP’s 2025 report, on which the resolution was based, condemned “all forms of racism, intolerance, antisemitism, Islamophobia, persecution of Christians, [and] xenophobia” (para. 81) . Following a long campaign by the European Conservatives and Reformists Group (co-led by the Polish PiS party and Italy’s Brothers of Italy), which pursues a Euro-realist program based on respect for the sovereignty of EU nations, proposed an amendment calling for a dedicated EU coordinator on combating Christianophobia. The amendment was supported by the center-right European People’s Party (EPP), the home of traditional Christian democratic parties in the EP. Incorporating the amendment, the 2026 resolution expresses “regret” that, while the European Commission has appointed a coordinator to combat Islamaphobia, “there is no European coordinator responsible for combating Christianophobia” (para. 84).
The 2026 EP resolution was widely welcomed by Christian churches (like the Catholic Church), advocacy groups (like the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe (OIDAC Europe)) and professional organizations (like the Union of Orthodox Journalists). The resolution echoes a 2025 speech by an adviser to COMECE (Commission of Catholic Bishops’ Conferences of the EU), which urged EU programs to recognize “anti-Christian hatred” alongside other discriminatory or stigmatizing behavior, such as antisemitism or Islamophobia. The resolution similarly echoes a September 2025 detailed memorandum on Christianophobia, urging greater EU protections, produced by the European Centre for Law and Justice, a Christian legal advocacy group with strong ties to the American Center for Law and Justice.
Intolerance against Christians in Europe has been debated in the EP before—for example, in October 2024, following a statement by the European Commission. The background document prepared by the EP’s research service refers to reporting by advocacy groups (such as OIDAC Europe) alongside the 2022 annual report of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). It also notes litigation then pending before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on religious observance restrictions introduced during COVID, highlighting a case brought by Ján Figeľ, former EU Special Envoy for the promotion of freedom of religion or belief outside the EU, and supported by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a global advocacy organization committed to defending religious freedom.
In April 2026 the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) issued a new resolution as a follow-up to its 2015 resolution “Freedom of religion and living together in a democratic society.” The 2026 resolution calls on “legislators and political leaders to abstain from using stigmatising and discriminatory language or making political use of religion, and [to] consider adopting effective tools to prevent and counter these practices” (sec. 14.4.1).
The report underlying the resolution had urged the PACE to pay closer attention to discrimination against Christians, reiterating the assertion of the 2015 resolution that “the expression of faith is sometimes unduly limited by national legislation and policies which do not allow the accommodation of religious beliefs and practices” (para. 13). Additionally, when the PACE resolution was still in draft form, Ordo Iuris, the Polish Christian conservative think tank, recommended closer attention to the 2025 OSCE report on anti-Christian hate crimes. Since the resolution’s adoption, the European Centre for Law & Justice has criticized the resolution for being silent on attacks and discrimination against Christians in Europe, pointing to acts of vandalism against churches and the resolution’s silence on conscientious objection in the health care sector.
While some institutions have been criticized for their perceived failure to address Christianophobia, in recent years European courts have bolstered Christian majorities and their political preferences, deferring to the outcomes of domestic democratic processes that limit the rights of religious minorities (e.g., in cases involving restrictions on ritual slaughter in the name of protecting animal welfare). In 2024 the ECtHR held in a ritual slaughter case, Executief van de Moslims van België & Others v. Belgium that the protection of animal welfare is a moral value that fits in the concept of public morals—and thereby qualifies as a legitimate aim that justifies the limitation of freedom of religion.
Europe’s Religious Tolerance Spectrum: Toward the Reciprocal Recognition of Freedom
As the above examples illustrate, the politicization of religion has become an everyday feature of European politics in the illiberal age. This leads to misappropriation—or rather, recalibration—of human rights, seeking to cut the ties between the protection of fundamental rights and constitutional democracy. This connection, however, is vital for freedom of religion, as freedom of religion (especially the freedom of believers of minority, nontraditional, and new religions as well as agnostics and atheists) is best respected in conditions of democratic self-rule.
While the 2026 EP resolution makes express mention of Christianophobia, it also calls on member states and EU institutions to abolish apostasy and blasphemy laws (para. 58). Thus, the resolution exposes Europe’s religious tolerance spectrum that spans between (a) communities of practice that seek more robust recognition of and protection for Christianity in the European public order and (b) others who seek human rights protections by constitutional democracies that remain neutral in matters of religion. Indeed, the ECtHR confirmed the obligation of state neutrality in Congrégation chrétienne des Témoins de Jéhovah v. Italy, a 2026 case concerning Italy’s refusal to enter into an agreement with Jehovah’s Witnesses, which had financial consequences. In this case the ECtHR reiterated that a democratic society based on principles of pluralism and respect for cultural diversity must justify “any difference based on religion or belief . . . by compelling reasons” (motifs impérieux) (sec. 58).
In the midst of polarization and competing narratives of victimhood, the reciprocal recognition of the other’s freedom and humanity easily falls by the wayside. In the 2003 Royal Institute of Philosophy Annual lecture, during a period of heated debate about the European constitution, Jürgen Habermas argued that tolerance—as the reciprocal recognition of freedom—was key to peaceful coexistence in a diverse society organized in terms of a secular, liberal democracy. In other words, the protection of Christians’ religious freedom is not undermined or diminished by the protection of others’ religious freedom (or freedom of conscience) but rather calls for it. Note also that the ECtHR insists on a strong individual conscience claim as the starting point for successful litigation: the ECtHR eventually dismissed the Figel’ case about COVID-era restrictions on religious worship because the applicant did not demonstrate that he was personally impacted by these measures (“He did not argue, for example, that had [sic] he would have faced prosecution if he had attended a public religious service, that is, that he had been confronted with a dilemma.” (Figeľ v. Slovakia, at para. 9 (3 July 2025))).
The growing emphasis on the protection of Christian values/culture/civilization in contemporary discourse is a reminder that in contemporary constitutional democracies reciprocal recognition of the freedom of religious minorities—that is, tolerance—calls for their overprotection. The most familiar tool to this effect is the reasonable accommodation of religious difference. While European law (both European human rights law and EU antidiscrimination law) provides room for reasonable accommodation, currently there is no positive obligation or duty to this effect in express terms.
Debates about European values provide an opportunity to revisit the values that make European democracies function and flourish. The 2026 EP resolution serves as a reminder of the EU’s broad tolerance spectrum across a wide range of human right issues in EU external-affairs engagement. Ongoing debates about European values serve as an opportunity to acknowledge that the reciprocal recognition of freedom—tolerance—as a European value fosters living together in a diverse society, under conditions of democratic self-governance within the Union.