SUMMARY

The ethical implications of science and technology are debated across the world and the need of having global governance of science has been advocated by several ethics bodies. As a consequence, main international bodies (such as Unesco, WHO, FAO, Council of Europe and the European Commission) started to work on ethics guidelines, initiatives, actions to implant this goal in the sectors of their respective competence. European Institutions and relevant bodies in the EU are not exempt from this goal, and several initiatives are being promoted to address bioethics issues at national and pan-European level (think of EUREC, NEC Forum and other similar initiatives). The question arising is whether is possible to identify an EU approach to bioethics and clarify specific feature of the European debate over the ethical implications of science and technology.

In this paper I will address both the relevance of ethics towards European Union (EU) policy and specific examples that show the different approach taken by EU Member States (MS). I will advocate that ethics of science and technology has acquired a relevant role in the EU policy design both at EU and MS level. I will address a number of questions, such as: The first question to focus on is: to what extent ethics is being embedded in EU policies? Does this notion get a support from EU citizens or is it a mere political decision? I will defend the thesis that (1) ethics is playing an important role in the EU policy strategy; (2) this political decision is democratically justified; (3) EU bioethics reflects strong socio-cultural differences between member States which reflect on normative aspects; (4) common ethics positions are reachable (such as for ethics in EU FP7) at EU level if MS identities are respected.