Increasing the welfare of animals used in experimentsPublic consultation on the revision of Directive 86/609/EEC on the protection of animals used for experimental and other scientific purposesThis internet consultation has been closed on 18 August 2006. The European Commission would like to thank all respondents for their valuable contributions and will take your views into consideration in its preparation of a proposal to revise the existing legislation that protects animals which are used for experimental and other scientific purposes. The results of the consultation will be published soon on this web-site. History
The aims of this consultation were two fold:
This consultation was addressed to any interested citizen and to experts in the field of animal experimentation. It therefore contained two questionnaires, one for all interested citizens and one for experts in the area of animal welfare, animal testing, animal science, natural sciences (especially biology, medicine, pharmacology and toxicology), legal and economic affairs related to these areas.
This consultation was open for 9 weeks following the day of its publication on the web. The closing date was 18 August 2006.
The replies to this consultation will help the Commission in its considerations regarding a revision of Directive 86/609/EEC, with the aim of improving animal welfare and the functioning of internal market in the field of animal experimentation. Once a proposal has been adopted by the Commission, it will be sent to the European Parliament and the Council to undergo the legislative procedure for adoption of the new Directive. This process will start in early 2007 and will most likely take at least two years to complete. The answers to the open questions in the expert questionnaire will be published on this website. For respondents who did not ask for confidentiality, names and contact details will be published alongside their responses. This ensures transparency and privacy while giving respondents a choice to make their views known in person.
You can access the questionnaires by clicking on the links below. You have the choice between two questionnaires:
Link to the questionnaire: 
Link to the questionnaire:
This consultation is subject to European-wide Personal
Data Protection rules. A Privacy Statement specifies how your data
will be used.
Directive 86/609/EEC on the protection of animals used for experimental and other scientific purposes is the main piece of community legislation in place today to protect animals used in experiments and to avoid distortions of the internal market in this field. The Directive seeks to improve the controls on the use of laboratory animals, sets minimum standards for housing and care as well as for the training of personnel handling animals and supervising the experiments. It also aims at reducing the numbers of animals used for experiments by requiring that an animal experiment should not be performed when an alternative method exists, and by generally encouraging the development and validation of alternative methods to replace animal methods. The Directive was adopted in 1986 and has not been significantly changed since. However, the EU Treaty now formally recognises the welfare requirements of animals since 1997. The protocol on the protection and welfare of animals, annexed to the Treaty, provides that "In formulating and implementing the Community's agriculture, transport, internal market and research policies, the Community and the Member States shall pay full regard to the welfare requirements of animals, while respecting the legislative or administrative provisions and customs of the Member States relating in particular to religious rites, cultural traditions and regional heritage." In recent years, it has become increasingly apparent that the Directive needs to be revised. The current Directive is open to interpretation and does not mirror important progress that has been made in science over the last two decades. New techniques have become available, such as use of transgenic animals, xeno-transplantation and cloning. These require specific attention, which the current Directive does not provide for nor is the use of animals with a higher degree of neurophysiologic sensitivity, such as in the case of non-human primates, specifically regulated. The overall aim of the revision is to achieve harmonised, controlled use of animals in scientific procedures with transparent practices across all 25 member States. The Directive should ensure a level playing field within the EU for establishments carrying out procedures on animals taking into account animal welfare considerations on the one hand and the Community's desire to stay in the leading edge of research on the other. It should also reflect relevant developments since the adoption of the Directive in 1986, including the Protocol to the Treaty referred to above, as well as ethical and other relevant concerns.
Preparatory activities for a revision of Directive 86/609/EEC In 2002, as part of the preparatory work for the revision, DG Environment requested the opinion of the Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare, SCAHAW, on the welfare of non-human primates used in experiments. This Opinion, adopted by SCAHAW on 17 December 2002, is available here. In 2003, DG Environment organised a Technical Expert Working Group, TEWG, to collect scientific and technical background information for the revision of the Directive. The experts from Member States, acceding countries (which are now Member States), industry, science and academia as well as from animal welfare organisations worked through a set of questions prepared by Environment Directorate-General. The results of the TEWG provide an important input for the revision of the Directive. These can be found here. In 2004, the Animal Health and Animal Welfare Panel, AHAW, of European Food Safety Authority was mandated to give a scientific opinion on further 4 questions in relation to the revision; whether the scope should include some invertebrate species and foetal/embryonic forms, which animals should be purpose bred and identifying humane methods of euthanasia. The answers have been published on 14 November 2005 and are available here. The input from TEWG, SCAHAW and AHAW Panel has provided a broad basis for different policy options for the revision. These are currently being evaluated, including through the impact assessment. The objective of the impact assessment is to analyse, critically review and assess policy options, their impacts, testing the conclusions and providing justifiable and quantitative (where possible) indications as to the related benefits and costs. Particular attention is paid to Members State and Stakeholder inputs, especially the effects on industry competitiveness and research in the EU, administrative compliance cost and socio-economic aspects on one hand, and improvement in science and welfare of animals, the animal lives and reduction of individual animal suffering/distress on the other. The impact assessment was started in January 2006 and is scheduled to be finalised by October 2006.
|
| Last update: |