Verbatim report of proceedings

Tuesday, 8 September 2015 - Strasbourg

Cloning of animals kept and reproduced for farming purposes (A8-0216/2015 - Giulia Moi, Renate Sommer)

  Jarosław Kalinowski (PPE), in writing. – As we have already agreed in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, cloning basically should be prohibited in the European market. Scientific studies showed that cloning leads to malformations of the animal’s uterus and foetus. We cannot know for certain whether food from cloned species will be dangerous to human health or not. Moreover, the question of traceability poses serious technical difficulties, especially to farmers, who would certainly need to bear additional costs for keeping track of cloned animals’ descendants. That is a heavy burden, both financially and administratively. Other doubts are raised in connection with ethics and religious beliefs: cloning interferes in animal welfare and rises moral questions. Animals should be treated as sentient beings, not a commodity.

Our task, as politicians, is to represent our citizens. European consumers do not like the idea of cloning, and, what is more, the idea of producing food from cloned animals. Therefore, we reject the proposal.