BERLIN (AFP) -- German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck sought on Saturday to rally his EU counterparts behind German plans for more oversight on speculative hedge funds, but only found limited support.

"There is general agreement that more work has to be done on this issue," Steinbrueck told journalists after chairing a meeting with finance chiefs and the Group of Seven richest countries drumming up support for its plans to step up oversight over hedge funds.

Hedge funds are largely unregulated pools of capital, whose managers often use borrowed money to take hugely complex and highly risky investments in a broad range of financial securities and commodities.

In the United States and Britain, home to the biggest hedge funds where resistance to the German campaign is strongest, such investment vehicles generally escape regulation because of their privately held ownership.

As the industry has grown, concerns have mounted, especially in Germany, that hedge funds could pose wider risks to the stability of the financial system if they ran into serious trouble.