Lissy Gröner (PSE). – (DE) Mr President, attacks on homosexuals are bad news, and we are getting that news from every corner of the European Union. The Vice-President, Commissioner Frattini, has told us what means the Commission has at its disposal to deal with homophobia and what it is actually doing with them, but what I should like him to tell us is whether that is meant to be enough. Are we really meant to find it acceptable that discrimination in the Member States should go unpunished and that they should fail to transpose the anti-discrimination directives? That is why there is a need for a build-up of political will, and this debate helps to bring that about. Five groups have come together and agreed on a text that denounces discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, and which is intended to protect homosexuals, lesbians, transgendered people and bisexuals.

The fact is, though, that more needs to be done; transposing the anti-discrimination directives cannot be something that Member States are left to do as and when they feel like it, and – as has already been said – if their authorities interfere with the right to demonstrate by, for example, banning gay pride marches, then they have to be called to account. Fundamental rights need to be reinforced and must apply not only in Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain, where the rights of same-sex couples are fully recognised, but throughout the European Union too.

I am absolutely outraged by what I have just heard said about the right to adopt being under attack. What determines whether or not a child will develop and flourish is the parents’ love and devotion, not their sexual orientation. That is where discrimination starts, and, although – thank God – we punish it, there are powerful voices in places like the Vatican who speak out in its defence, thereby encouraging even more flagrant manifestations of homophobia.

I will therefore close by saying that morality is a private matter for private citizens themselves, but what we in this House have to do is defend the law, and that is what five groups are doing.

(Applause)