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Thursday, July 20 2006 @ 10:11 PM Central Daylight Time
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 Germany pressed its EU partners to ban European funding for embryonic stem-cell research, a day after President George W. Bush vetoed a bill that would have expanded such work in the United States.
European countries have widely differing national laws, with Britain actively encouraging stem-cell research. Stem-cell research would receive only a small fraction of the EU science budget of some 51 billion euros ($64.3 billion) in 2007-13 but Germany is hoping to rally a coalition of mainly Roman Catholic countries to block it.
A draft ministerial decision proposed by Finland, which holds the 25-nation bloc's rotating presidency, would rule out EU funding for research on human reproductive cloning, genetic modification of human beings and artificial creation of human embryos solely for research purposes. But it would allow funding for research on human stem cells.
A narrow majority in the European Parliament voted last month in favor of allowing continued public funding for stem-cell research. If Germany can force an amendment in the council of EU governments, parliament would have to reconsider the issue on a second reading.
Mabelle Sese
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