EU industry vows to cut down on animal testing

The European Commission and major industrial players agreed on Wednesday (21 June) to a five-year plan to reduce animal testing in product-safety checks, but animal rights campaigners want it to end now.

Leaders of the cosmetics, chemical and pharmaceutical industry joined up with the commission in a "European Partnership for Alternative Approaches to Animal Testing (EPAA)," aimed at voluntarily reducing and replacing animal testing where possible.

"The European partnership is an important contribution to find alternatives to animal testing. We are now moving from words to deeds," said EU industry commissioner Gunther Verheugen in a statement.

The plan includes EU guidelines on when companies can label their products "not tested on animals," with the industry having to positively prove that no animals were tested in such products.

Brussels has also put pressure on industry to agree to phase-out animal testing, which most Europeans oppose.

"We know from public opinion surveys that animal rights are very close to the hearts of Europeans," EU commissioner for science and research Janez Potocnik said in the statement.

Animals groups said it was a step in the right direction but called for an end to animal testing now.

"This initiative shows that there is a strong desire amongst politicians and business to leave cruel and outdated animal tests behind," Sean Gifford of the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection told the International Herald Tribune.

"However, 10 million animals continue to suffer and die in EU laboratories, and that's 10 million animals too many," he added, stating that "we need an immediate shift away from animal-based testing."

The commission said it has validated 23 alternative non-animal testing methods so far and around 30 others are now being evaluated.

Cosmetics test ban

The development comes as the industry and national governments are working to meet a 2009 EU ban on the testing of cosmetics products on animals, which is particularly controversial.

The cosmetics tests ban was agreed in 2002 after 13 years of discussion, with the Netherlands, Belgium and the UK already having outlawed the practice.

Every year, around 38,000 animals are used and killed in developing cosmetics in the EU.

France, which is home to the world's largest cosmetics company L'Oreal, protested the proposed ban by lodging a case at the European Court of Justice asking that the ban be quashed.

But Paris lost the case in 2003.

L'Oreal is one of the companies who have agreed to the commission plan. Mr Verheugen called on firms which had not yet joined the partnership to do so.