The third Europe of Values group met in Brussels last week.

The Europe of Values is a forum that initiates an in-depth reflection and discussion on the impact, implementation, interpretation and challenges related to the common European values.

The Church Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland has arranged a series of three Europe of Values-events, where Brussels based Finns – representing both the EU institutions and regional EU offices, trade unions, NGOs, business, education and media sectors are invited by the Archbishop of Finland Rt. Rev. Tapio Luoma for an in-depth value-related reflections.

At the second meeting of the third Europe of Values group last week, issues concerning security, insecurity and hope were discussed. The meeting was hosted by Piritta Asunmaa, the Finnish Ambassador to NATO, in the new NATO headquarters. The confidential discussions follow the Chatham House rules of confidentiality. The event was again well attended, and the discussions were open and spirited and highly appreciated.

One of the members of the Europe of Values Group III is the CEC General Secretary Fr Heikki Huttunen, representing the NGO sector.

In addition to the Europe of Values-forums, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland also arranges similar forums for discussion on the national level – the Academy of Values (Arvojen Akatemia) is by now a well-established concept since more than 20 years, and there is also a similar project for young people called the Arena of Values (Arvojen Areena).

The Europe of Values-project is the very first project to be launched outside Finland. Under the auspices of the Archbishop of Finland, the Europe of Values concept will continue to be further developed in coming years.