The Ethics Advice Mechanism works on a wide range of policy-relevant topics. This page explains where those topics come from.
Requests from the Commission
The European Commission may request advice from the Ethics Advice Mechanism at any time, on any field that is relevant to EU legislation and policies where ethical, societal and fundamental rights issues intersect with the development of science and new technologies.
Formally, the European Group on Ethics reports to the President of the European Commission, which means all requests come from the President.
In practice, the original source of the request may also be from policy departments within the Commission, or from other institutions such as the European Parliament or Council of the EU. In these cases, the request is first made to the President, who then decides whether to makes the request to the Ethics Advice Mechanism.
‘Own-initiative’ topics
Alternatively, the European Group on Ethics can also decide independently (‘by its own initiative’) to produce advice on a particular topic. This can happen, for instance:
- if the Group becomes aware of new scientific or technological developments with ethical dimensions that are relevant to policy
- if the Group foresees an upcoming need for ethics advice on another issue
- if the ethics community, via SAEGE’s horizon-scanning activities, proposes a topic that it considers important and the Group agrees
When the Group is considering giving advice on a topic by its own initiative, the EGE secretariat can investigate:
- which Commissioner, Commission service or EU body would find the advice useful
- which policy processes might be affected by it
- what is the current state of policymaking in this area