ABSTRACT
The analysis in this collection of aggregated data on the whole sample of members of the European Parliament (MEPs) has highlighted the resilience of national belongings and political spaces as the prevailing elements structuring the way to deal with religion. In this conclusion, it is worth elaborating further on the comparison between these national patterns, on their possible feedback on European politics and on the different ways they can adapt to or resist Europeanisation. The most significant national cases are referred to as illustrations of convergent and divergent features, and non-European countries (the USA and Israel) are used to question European specificities on these matters. Seven main points are underlined, as findings of the RelEP projects and/or possible venues for future research: (1) the general secularisation – a trend encompassing privatisation and culturalisation of religion – which has reached all European societies, to various extents and with different forms; (2) the secondarity of religion to other issues, as well as its underlying influence and its status of instrumental resource to pursue other ends; (3) the importance of the congruence or non-congruence between national and European models for articulating politics and religion in order to understand how political considerations prevail over religious adherences; (4) the fact that European integration does not alter the religious dimension of national identity but may influence the context within which this religious dimension of national identity is enunciated; (5) (a) the development of the link between religious affiliation and party affiliation at the European level, with (b) the specific role of Christian Democracy and (c) the interaction between religious representation through parties and religious advocacy through lobbies, with the exploratory hypothesis that strong religious parties may make weak religious lobbies; (6) the structure of opportunity offered for the Europeanisation of religious issues according to their status in domestic politics, with the hypothesis that the conflictualisation of religion at home opens possibilities for political entrepreneurship on religious causes at the European Parliament (EP) and encourages atheists to make themselves heard in supranational arenas; (7) the importance of the territorialisation of religion, either (a) to ensure its electoral influence through the resistance of local constituencies where religion still matters very much, or (b) to put religion on the geopolitical agenda as a result of religiously connoted relationships with neighbour countries.
