Concordats are agreements between sovereign states and the Roman Catholic Church. A new web site, Concordat Watch keeps track of these agreements and includes a detailed explanation of the background to concordats.

At the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on Tuesday, 15 April, states belonging to the Organisation of Islamic Conference demanded that Holland prosecute one of its MPs for "defamation of religion". The very next day, 16 April 2008, Keith Porteous Wood raised the alarm about the threats these nations are posing to freedom of expression in a speech in Brussels attended by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.

The European Humanist Federation has written to the President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, to ask whether the European Union will now consult its member states and allies with a view to withdrawing from the UN Human Rights Council, in the light of the Council's recent decision to change the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression.

Keith Porteous Wood gave the following address on behalf of IHEU and the National Secular Society to the 'Religion And Politics In The New Europe' forum at the European Parliament in Brussels on Tuesday 27th November, 2007.

Europeans who have no religion are increasing in number but are becoming increasingly disadvantaged in the political process.

The majority of the EU population are either non-religious or do not actively practise any religion and they are being betrayed by increasingly strident religious influence on moral matters in EU institutions.

In 1989 in Vienna, OSCE member states agreed (in the words of their concluding document) to

IHEU and member organization the National Secular Society have sent a message to the European Intergroup on Gay and Lesbian rights, meeting at the European Parliament in Strasbourg on 14 November 2007. The message calls for human rights and gay communities to recognise the strength of the threat from organised religion and to renew their efforts against it.

IHEU has followed up its presentation to the Council of Europe’s San Marino conference “The religious dimension of intercultural dialogue” with a massive written submission containing 40 specific recommendations. The paper was prepared in conjunction with the UK National Secular Society. It is also available in the original form, complete with contents and footnotes, as a PDF file for download below.

Following discussions in which IHEU representatives played an important role, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has strongly supported the separation of religion and state [1].