Italian MPs have voted to back a law banning the production, sale or import of cultivated meat or animal feed, in what the right-wing government calls a defense of Italian tradition.
The vote in parliament was met by rallies for and against the ban.
The EU has not yet given any lab-grown meat, described as “novel foods”, the green light.
Wolfgang Gelbmann of the European Food Safety Authority said in September that no proposal had yet been sent to the authority for approval.
The new law is a victory for Italy’s agriculture minister, who a year ago vowed to prevent “synthetic food” from reaching dining tables in Italy.
He praised MPs for backing the new law, which came in response to a petition organized by the Coldiretti lobby group.