The EU's 25 member states take different regulatory positions on human embryonic stem celli research, reflecting the diversity of ethical, philosophical and religious beliefs throughout Europe. These differences are reflected in the laws of each country, summarised in this table .
Belgium has a similar legal position to the UK – allowing the procurement of human embryonic stem cellsi from surplus IVF embryos and, in particular circumstances (e.g. to study a particular serious disease), the creation of human embryos for the procurement of human embryonic stem cells.
At the other end of the spectrum, Germany and Italy prohibit the procurement of human embryonic stem cells from human embryos, while Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland, Romania and Slovakia have no specific legislation at all in this area.
European diversity has led to vigorous debate when funding for embryonic stem cell research is discussed. In July 2006, European Ministers agreed to fund some elements of human embryonic stem cell research - allowing scientists in countries where human embryo experiments are legal to apply for funding for this work through the Framework Seven research programme.
Several European Directives, as well as the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine (1997) are also relevant to human embryonic stem cell research. These
regulations, especially as they relate to stem cell banking and databases, were discussed at EuroStemCell's workshop on the Ethical aspects of stem cell repositories and databases.