EU lawmakers want full animal cloning ban

EU lawmakers backed calls Tuesday to tighten up a proposed ban on cloning animals for food so as to ensure they never find a place on European farms.

The European Commission is ready to ban animal cloning in the 28-nation bloc but MEPs said it had to go further to halt all imports and the use of cloned products to ease public concerns about food safety.

"Up to now, we have been able to import reproductive material from third countries. We are washing our hands letting others do the dirty work," said MEP Renate Sommer, who presented the recommendations in a report to the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

"We want to ban comprehensively. Not just the use of cloning techniques but the imports of reproductive material, clones and their descendants," Sommer said.

Lawmakers and the public are deeply suspicious Brussels could allow widespread use of animal cloning and genetically modified foods under the terms of a massive free trade agreement being negotiated with the United States.

EU leaders insist health standards will not suffer but Parliament remains sceptical about the merits of what is known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

The MEP's report was adopted by 529 votes to 120, with 57 abstentions, and will now form the basis for what are likely to be difficult negotiations with the Commission, the EU's executive arm.

EU Food and Health Safety Commissioner Vytenis Andriukatitis said the restrictions in the report were not "justified," arguing that descendants of cloned animals showed no health problems while a complete ban might be difficult to sustain in law.