The European Group on Ethics: Law,Politics and the Limits of Moral Integration in Europe

Abstract: The article offers a critical review of the institutional role of the European Group on Ethics in the EU, focusing on the appointment and composition of the group, the nature of its ‘opinions’, the way these are used by the Commission and other EU institutional actors, looking in particular at its controversial Opinion 22 on the ethical review and funding of stem cell research under the FP7 programme. The analysis highlights the methodological difficulties faced by the group in the grounding of its Opinions, the blurring of normative moral and legal orders, the risk of politicisation of ethics and the potential overreach by the EU of its competences in reliance on a group of this kind to reach unity on deeply contested moral questions in a culturally and morally diverse Europe.