Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-11-17-Speech-1-069"
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"en.20031117.6.1-069"2
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"Mr President, I would like to start by taking a critical view of the bitter attack made upon Mr Liese, the rapporteur. If, Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, it is so scandalous that someone should try to get this House to accept a different position, then you evidently have no idea what Parliament is meant to do. Our function must surely be to take up an independent position rather than being a mere extension of the Commission, and so I would like to take this opportunity of expressing warm thanks to Mr Liese.
Today’s vote blazes a trail. Mr Liese was right to say that what we are not doing today is deciding whether or not we welcome research on stem cells or embryos. In my own group, too, there are different opinions on that, but we can quite clearly agree on one thing, namely that it is not acceptable that research involving the destruction of human embryos, which is illegal and punishable in many Member States, should be funded out of the EU’s tax revenue. For money to be invested in research projects that are illegal in the Member States in which they are carried out would be without parallel in the European Union. Being, like Mr Liese, from Germany, I can say that this, for Germany, is yet another quite remarkable situation. It is utterly unacceptable, Commissioner, and something that the German public cannot be expect to tolerate – particularly since we are net contributors – that German taxpayers should be coerced into co-financing one out of every five projects in the field of research using supernumerary human embryos, that is, research in the course of which embryos are destroyed, even though this is a criminal offence under German law. I think this is a problem for other countries in a similar way.
Let me repeat, Commissioner, that you are sending out completely the wrong message! You are rewarding the production of supernumerary embryos, which one might term a stock incentive. Your proposal reduces human embryos to the level of a biological raw material. There is something on which I ask you to elaborate, Commissioner, something that I find utterly inexplicable, and that is that I have heard that what we are talking about here is nine research projects out of 15 000. Just nine projects, and I ask myself why you are so vehement in their defence. I get the impression, Commissioner, that this is about something quite different, that what matters to you is ..."@en1
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