The promise: a unified continent, with nations coming on board in the hope of greater prosperity and opportunity. The peril: that unemployment, economic upheaval and other societal woes will deny us that prosperity.

It is a double-edged sword. Proponents of the European Union can claim a major achievement-peace and stability in Western Europe for the first time in history. Yet, despite 60 years of political advances, we remain mired in many intractable problems.

Drug trafficking is a €317 billion a year industry. Functional illiteracy is widespread-more than 20% in the U.K. Prison populations are growing in 66% of European nations, fueled by more re-offenders.

These statistics all point to an inescapable fact: regardless of the debate being waged from Sweden to Gibraltar over the shape of a future Europe, no political structure will ever be capable of resolving the problems of the individual.

Democracy works because it grants the individual the freedom to tackle those problems. But as cultural trends demonstrate, it cannot solve them for him.

Thus political, not to mention scientific, advances must be complemented by progress in those fields traditionally addressing Man's understanding of himself-philosophy and religion.

That need has at last been answered. For more than three decades, programmes based on the discoveries of humanitarian and writer L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the Scientology religion, have been providing effective remedies for society’s worst dilemmas: the fields of drug rehabilitation, illiteracy, criminal reform and immorality.

These solutions provide a means to enable each individual to take full advantage of the opportunities available in today’s Europe.

Thus, as we stand on the brink of a future with many challenges, it is up to us-the citizens and institutions of the EU-to make that tomorrow a positive one. We, the Church of Scientology, are bringing human rights and effective social betterment technologies of Mr. Hubbard to all who need them; and to accomplish this, the Church of Scientology International recognised that a coordinating hub was needed-in Brussels, at the centre of Europe.

It is now located at 91 Rue de la Loi.

Welcome to the European Office for Public Affairs and Human Rights.