The European Commission has apologised for printing more than three million school diaries 
containing no reference to Easter or Christmas, but has rejected calls for the diaries to be recalled.
The diaries note Sikh, Hindu, Muslim and Chinese festivals, as well as highlighting ”Europe Day” which falls on May 9, but failed to acknowledge any Christian holidays, angering Church leaders and politicians.
Earlier this year a Commission official admitted the omission was a ”blunder”, after the Commission suggested that might not include any religious holidays in future editions of its diaries.
But a formal complaint by an Irish priest prompted an inquiry by the EU Ombudsman into the 2010/2011 edition of the ”Europa Diary”, issued to secondary schools every year by Brussels.
On Monday, the Ombudsman, P Nikiforos Diamandouros, dismissed calls for the entire run to be recalled, saying the Commission’s apology for the ”regrettable” error, coupled with a one-page correction sent out to all schools showing the main public holidays in every EU member state, was sufficient.
An inquiry report today said: ”In the Ombudsman’s view, the actions which the Commission took to rectify the error were reasonable. He further considered that it would be disproportionate to reprint the 2010/2011 edition. Accordingly, the Ombudsman closed the case without further inquiries.”
However, in a statement, the Commission has now said that the publication of the diary excluding Christian holidays was a “regrettable omission”. It has sent out corrections to all teachers who have ordered the edition.
“There was never an intention to discriminate against the Christian religion in this publication,” the European Commission’s Consumer Affairs department stated.
In its initial response to the controversy, a spokesperson for the Commission said that a possible solution to the error was to remove all religious holidays.
Christians were angered because the diary section for December 25 is blank and the bottom of the page with Christmas Day is marked only with the secular message: “A true friend is someone who shares your concerns and will double your joy”.
The Christian Democratic Party in France called the omissions “unacceptable.” It filed a petition asking that the calendars not be distributed as printed but replaced with versions that include Christian holidays.
The European Commission and the EU Economic and Social Committee funded the distribution of 3,275,500 copies of the 2010/2011 Europa Diary, a school calendar for secondary school students to help them in homework. Its weekly pages include footnotes to teach students facts they might not know, including holidays of other religions.
The publisher said the omission of Christian holidays occurred in the footnotes. The calendar did include both Muslim and Jewish holidays.
The 2011/2012 edition of the calendar will include the main public and religious holidays celebrated in each of the EU countries.