08/08/2001 (Agence Europe) - In a Statement of Principle, the European Commission on Wednesday openly opposed the plan by the Italian gynaecologist Severino Antinori aimed at conceiving a "normal" baby by cloning human embryo cells. The Commission, that has no power to legislate in a field that remains the responsibility of Member States, said that it was against the cloning of human beings for reproductive purposes, "for ethical reasons", that the new-born baby would have "a very high risk of cancer" and that the projects it financed only related to "therapeutic" cloning on cells from adult stock. The purpose of these research programmes are said to consist in manufacturing embryos that would serve as cell plants of the sick. It also recalls that in the EU, only in the United Kingdom has legislation banning therapeutic and reproductive cloning (in fact, in January the British Parliament authorised the cloning of human embryos for therapeutic purposes: Ed.).