experimentation on human embryos, their opposition to the secularisation of Sunday, or their commitment to raise overseas aid spending to United Nations targets. In a characteristically visionary speech, the former Belgian Prime Minister and present Member of the European Parliament, Leo Tindemans, told the 1990 Dutch Symposium on The Next Ten Years how he saw the shape of European politics. He said that 'society will be confronted by major problems which science poses. The world fears certain results which science may bring. In the area of communications, for instance television in every home, people fear they will be manipulated by science and technology.' Tindemans also underlined the growing need for international co-operation and decentralised decision-making:
Post Gulf, everyone is talking about the role of the UN and Europe. These structures will have a new role. The Christian Democrat theme of subsidiarity has become a core subject. Every country will have to deal with regional issues and our structures, from home to state, must allow for decisions to be taken at the lowest possible level.
At the same conference, M. Oreja Aguirre, the Spanish chairman of the Institutional Committee of the European Parliament, said that Christian Democrats would have a central role in preparing a federal constitution for European Union, and that this should specifically allow for a unified and common voting system based on proportional representation. Professor Sussmuth, CDU President of the Bundestag, said that German reunification had speeded up the process of European unification. She added that the three basic words of the Christian Democrat vocabulary over the next decade should be 'subsidiarity, personality and solidarity'. Wim van Velzen, the Dutch CDA Chairman, said that if Christian Democracy were no more than anti-Communist and anti-socialist, the temptation to choose liberal capitalism as a leading principle would be strong. But, he argued, the next ten years will demand a policy which 'offers more than individualism, consumptive behaviour and materialism. The problems we face demand answers based on Christian standards and values.' He defined basic concepts as 'justice, managership, solidarity and decentralised responsibility'. In Europe 'we speak about freedom in responsibility, solidarity, justice and respect for Creation'. He said that the economic order advocated by Christian Democrats is not the liberal-capitalist economy: 'It is a socially and ecologically balanced market economy.' Wilfried