The EU started to develop a Common Foreign and Security Policy with the Maastricht Treaty (1992). Moreover, in recent years, the EU intensified efforts to promote Human Rights outside its borders and it has played a major role in International Trade and Development Aid. EU Enlargement continues to be an important pillar of EU’s External Policy. Since 2004 a specific Neighborhood Policy was elaborated to establish good relations with neighboring countries. In the hope that a united Europe can take a stronger role on the world stage, COMECE together with Justice and Peace Europe aims to assist the EU in its vocation to promote global peace and assume its responsibility for supporting sustainable development and social justice across the world. COMECE is assisted in this mission by a Commission on the External Relations of the European Union.
The President of COMECE, H.Em. Card. Jean-Claude Hollerich SJ, and other Bishop Delegates to COMECE, together with more than 110 Catholic Bishops from all around the world, signed on Monday, 6 July 2020, the declaration“Now more than ever, we need mandatory supply chain due diligence to stop corporate abuse and guarantee global solidarity”,demanding public authorities to introduce binding legislation to stop corporate abuses, regulate their activities and make them accountable by law.
Bishop Rimantas Norvila, President of the COMECE Commission on the EU External Relations, and Bishop David J. Malloy, Chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on International Justice and Peace, have issued a joint statement in view of a meeting between U.S. and Russian officials, scheduled to take place on 22 June 2020 in Vienna.
