Strasbourg, 25/09/2002 (Agence Europe) - Tuesday morning's meeting between the Danish Presidency of the Council and European Parliament representatives confirmed the obstacles facing the search for a solution to problems linked the compromise most Member States can subscribe to on research concerning embryonic stem cells. At that meeting, Commissioner Philippe Busquin once more placed emphasis on the need to adopt the specific programmes definitively by 30 September. Last piece of the 6th framework-programme, these specific programmes are essential for the programme's implementation and the launch by the end of the year of the first calls for tenders. To avoid any delay and offer Parliament an honourable way out, the Commissioner presented a proposal and, in the afternoon, received the College's go-ahead to present it to the Committee of Permanent Representatives at a meting scheduled for Wednesday in Brussels. This formula only slightly alters the compromise that postpones until 2004 the possibility of Community co-funding for research projects into human embryonic stem cells and introduces a procedure for drawing up, by a regulatory committee (with Member States but without the EP) of an ethical framework for this type of research. The European Commission would, however, make a report on this procedure to the European Parliament in the first half of 2003 still, and that report would open the way to a new legislative procedure that would thus avoid Parliament being totally excluded from the debate on ethics.