COMECE
Autumn plenary and new headquartersFrom 3 November the Commission of the Episcopates of the European Community (CEMECE) will have a new seat in Square de Meeûs 19/1, again in Brussels (like its former offices). It will be inaugurated during the autumn plenary (12-14 November). Preceded by the European Catholic Pastoral News Service (Sipeca 1976-1980), COMECE was founded in the Belgian capital on 3 March 1980, as an institution providing a connecting link between the Bishops’ Conferences and the European Community. It is composed of 24 delegate bishops, one for each of the Bishops’ Conferences of the EU. The bishops of Croatia and Switzerland participate as observers. The aim of the Commission is to accompany and analyse the political process of the EU, inform the Churches on developments in European legislation and policies, and encourage reflection on the challenges posed by Europe. Since 2006 COMECE has been headed by the Most Rev. Adrianus van Luyn, Bishop of Rotterdam. Its new general secretary since 1st October, replacing Mgr. Noël Treanor, now ordained as Bishop of Down & Connor (Northern Ireland), is Father Piotr Mazurkiewicz, priest of the archdiocese of Warsaw, an expert on European questions and director of the political science institute at the “Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski” University. Yes to the “family package”The secretariat of COMECE has expressed appreciation for the proposal made by the European Commission on 3 October to prolong the minimum duration of maternity leave in Europe from 14 to 18 months. “This measure – says a press release – may in fact permit women to better reconcile work and family life, while at the same time guaranteeing greater wage equity between men and women”. It “could also help to halt the decline of the birth rate in Europe”. “The proposed reform of Directive 92/85/EEC on the protection of maternity” – continues the communiqué – forms part of the ‘family package’ presented by the Commissioner for Social Affairs Vladimir Spidla” on 3 October and aims to create a homogeneous situation in the 27 member states, prolonging maternity leave to a minimum 18 weeks “with the maintenance of salary and the guarantee to find on the mother’s return to work a post equivalent to the one she held at the start of her leave”. COMECE points out a further step forward in the possibility for the mother who resumes work to “ask her employer for greater flexibility in working hours”. The COMECE secretariat also encourages member states to “respect the Barcelona objectives (2002) to achieve by 2010 childcare structures for at least 90% of children aged between three and school age, and for at least 33% of children below the age of three”, and lastly invites the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament to “turn reconciliation between work and family life into one of the main targets of European social policy and also a guiding principle of other draft legislation such as the current reform of Directive 2003/88/EC on times of work”.The views of the bioethics reflection group Reawakening “interest in bioethical issues” and promoting “a climate that furthers dialogue between the Church and the political, scientific and economic worlds”: this is the purpose of the publication of “Scienza ed etica”, that was announced today by the secretariat of the Commission of the EU Bishops Conferences (Comece). The text, in English and French, collects 16 opinions given over the last 12 months by the Bioethical Reflection Group of Comece. From the “ethical aspects of organ donation” to the “ethical-anthropological issues raised by the creation of man-animal hybrid organisms”, states a release published today; to the “issues raised by nano-medicine and the patentability of human stem cells”. Issues also include death wills, euthanasia, gene tests, biomedical research in developing countries, cloning and embryo research, and embryo stem cell research. “Bioethical issues are playing a more and more important role in the different spheres of European politics”, states Comece secretariat, mentioning for instance the European Directive on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions (the patent right directive), which is being examined by the European Patent Office.”The promotion of cloning and the use of stem cells from human embryos for scientific research – goes on Comece – is a problem that has been regularly disputed in Europe in the last few years, because of the support it has received through the European framework programme for research”. As to the draft directive that is being prepared by the European Commission regarding organ donation for transplants, Comece points out that “this too raises some essential ethical issues, especially the donors’ free will and the principle of not selling the human body and its parts”. In light of the meaning of the bioethical issues for EU politics, in 1996 Comece set up this Bioethical Reflection Group to examine bioethical implications for the European Union and its institutions, as well as to inform the bishops who are members of Comece and their Bishops Conferences. The Group is composed of experts in theology, ethics and philosophy, law, medicine and pharmacology.
