Lawmakers voted 77 in favour and 62 against the bill giving same-sex couples the right to adopt children, with seven abstentions, a spokesman for the Flemish Christian Democratic party told Reuters.

The bill will pass into law once it wins the approval of the Senate, which is expected in March.

The bill resembles laws in Spain and Sweden, where same-sex couples can adopt children of any nationality.

Lawmakers said they favoured the bill because it gave the children of homosexual couples the same rights to inheritance and succession as those of heterosexual couples.

"There are already a lot of children who live with homosexual couples. We want them to have two parents with whom they have full, legal rights," said Fons Borginon, president of the lower house's justice committee.

"What happens when the biological parent dies?" asked Borginon, whose VLD Flemish Liberal party supports the bill.

"It is better to have a clear situation and all parties agree there is a legal problem with the rights of the child. It is better to have a system of full adoption," he said.

Gay adoption is legal in other EU countries, but with some restrictions.

In the Netherlands, homosexual couples may only adopt Dutch children, while in Germany and Denmark, adoption is restricted to the biological child or children of one of the partners.

There had been some opposition to the measure.

"Every child has the right to a mother and a father. We think that a man and a woman living togther is the best basis to educate a child," said Peter De Crem, head of the Flemish Christian Democrats in the lower house.

"The party is worried about the fact that it is not generally or socially acceptable for homosexual couples to raise children," he said.

The Christian Democrats had proposed that a natural parent's partner could become a legal guardian of the child to resolve issues such as inheritance.

But they were against homosexual couples adopting someone else's biological child.

Read also the BBC coverage of this story.