EU leaders have proposed a ban on food products from cloned animals, but not from their offspring.

The draft rules on clones were drawn up in early 2012, and adopted by the Commission on Wednesday. The 2012 plans were drawn up following an earlier, unsuccessful attempt to set out rules on animal products from clones.

The Commission adopted three draft laws on animal cloning and novel food, stating that the regulations would provide legal certainty on certain areas of the cloning issue. If approved by the EU's other legislative bodies, the two proposals will ban the use of the cloning technique in the EU for farm animals and the imports of animal clones. The marketing of food from cloned animals will also be prohibited for five years.

The proposals are intended to address animal welfare and other ethical concerns related to the use of the technique, which remains far from precise. The ban on clones, but not their offspring, is to do with welfare concerns surrounding the cloning process itself; although it is already used commercially in the United States and parts of South America, the process is successful in less than a fifth of cases and often results in birth defects or miscarriage. The Commission said that, as this is not the case with conventionally-bred offspring of clones, these would not be subject to the same restrictions.

83 percent of European consumers polled have expressed opposition to the idea of meat from cloned animals entering the food chain (including their offspring), even if clear labelling were introduced.

Monique Goyens, Director General of European Consumers' Organisation BUEC was highly critical of the Commission's draft measures. She said, "These measures are unfortunately a near duplicate of previous efforts which failed three years ago, which leaves us at a standstill. The Commission had plenty of time to come up with a more ambitious proposal."

She suggested the EU may be putting the progress of trade agreements ahead of the wishes of EU citizens; she specifically referenced the ongoing trade talks between the EU and US.  

The first successfully cloned mammal in the World was Dolly the sheep, cloned by scientists in Scotland in 1996. BUEC's Monique Goyens added, "The offspring of clones are off-limits to the proposal, which instead focuses on meat from clones themselves. No farmer would ever make meat out of a €100,000 clone. Cloned animals are instead used for reproduction purposes, not to end up on our plates."

Even so, EU Health Commissioner Tonio Borg said on Wednesday, "Today's initiatives on animal cloning respond to animal welfare concerns as well as consumer perceptions on food from animal clones in a realistic and workable way. The changes on novel food will create a more efficient system. It will offer EU consumers the benefit of a broad choice of foodstuffs and provides a favourable environment for Europe's food industry."