By Robin Pomeroy

STRASBOURG, France (Reuters) - The European Parliament voted Wednesday to fund research using stem cells taken from human embryos, a controversial procedure opposed by anti-abortion activists.

The assembly's opinion sends a message to European Union (news - web sites) ministers who are due to decide next month whether to lift a moratorium that prevents EU cash from going to such experiments, which are banned in several of the bloc's member states.

British Labor deputy David Bowe, who backs the research because of its potential to fight diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, was delighted.

"It will be a difficult decision (for ministers) but we are on the up at the moment," Catholic countries like Italy, Germany, Austria, Portugal, Spain, Ireland and Luxembourg, were likely to oppose parliament's position, EU deputies said.

Parliament voted 298-241, with 21 abstentions, for a report which recommends releasing EU funds for experimenting on cells from human embryos, no more than 14 days old, left over from infertility treatments.

The move would allow money from the EU's $23.83 billion research budget for the period 2003-2006 to go to the research.

While most of the body's cells can only make copies of themselves, stem cells grow into other types of cells -- making them a potential source of hard-to-get cells for transplants.

Stem cells can be harvested from aborted embryos, embryos left over from in-vitro fertilization and embryos cloned specially for the purpose. This has led to objections from the Catholic Church, which believes destroying embryos is morally equivalent to killing people.

The issue is politically divisive and in April the parliament was hung -- 232 votes in each direction -- on a resolution calling for such research to be banned in the EU.

German Christian Democrat deputy Peter Liese, who drafted the report, voted against it when the assembly rejected his compromise proposal to allow such stem cells to be used only if procured before June 2002.

The United States, the world leader in biotechnology research, has set a similar cut-off point, one year earlier, designed to allow use of existing stem cell cultures but banning the production of new ones.

Those like Bowe, who have no qualms about the use of embryonic tissue that would otherwise be destroyed, argued against the setting of a U.S.-style cut-off date as newer stem cells would be cheaper and more effective for researchers.