Freemasons wants to open an office in Brussels to lobby in EU

Freemasons wants to open an office in Brussels to lobby against the increasing influence of religious organizations in the institutions of the European Union, said the former Grand Master of Grand Lodge "Grand Orient de France" Jean-Michel Quillardet.

Masonic orders would need to practice politics in a positive sense of the term in order in spite of its divisions to defend secularism and express disagreement with certain decisions of the European administration - said Quillardet to the Belgian daily Le Soir.

He added that the European Masonic lodges are divided on this issue. In fact, some fear it will open offices in the capital of the EU to attract to attract attention to himself. But Quillardet holding to practical reasons should prevail over the divisions. - One day we will be able to establish a general Masonic delegation. At the political level possible, but in the financial infinitely less because we have less money then the churches - explained a former Grand Master.

The first task of the Brussels office would be the promotion of ideas of the Enlightenment, which consists of the point that, as Quillardet says, Europeans, primarily the citizens of Europe before the Jews, dark-skinned people from the Maghreb, homosexuals, heterosexuals ...

Quillardet discovers that his line is already trying to unite all the European lodges. In 2007. organized a Pan-European Congress of Masons in Strasbourg, and in 2008 and 2009. same meeting held in Greece and Turkey. This year, a European Freemasons gather in Portugal. Two years ago, a European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso met for the first time with Freemason delegation.

- We told him that apart from its Christian roots, Europe is based on Greek and Roman philosophy, humanism and the Renaissance Enlightenment - Quillardet said, adding that the same year, Barroso sent a letter to a Masonic Congress in Athens, which the former Grand Master has considered as a "recognition of the Freemasons" .