Features
New European Law, New Animal-Testing Laboratories?
Improvements Made, and Improvements Needed
In some of the 27 EU nations affected by the new law, legal protection for animals in laboratories was nearly non-existent for many years, and experiments can still take place with almost no oversight by authorities. The new law should therefore do much to reduce the worst excesses that take place in some countries.
However, the changes that have been proposed would not fundamentally alter laboratory practices in the major animal-testing countries of the EU, such as the UK and Germany and could even make them worse. In these and other countries, many of these provisions, including "ethical evaluation", are already in place, but they often do nothing to prevent animal suffering. Experiments for trivial purposes such as household-product tests are still allowed, officials still unquestioningly swallow unrealistic claims about the benefits of testing, decisions are still kept secret from the public and the number of animal experiments is spiralling upwards.
Since the law was published, it has gone through a number of changes as different political bodies give their input (see below). While PETA and other animal protection organisations have sought to strengthen the protections offered to animals, many of those who use animals have resisted our changes and lobbied the politicians to try to water down the proposals that already exist. The result is a mixed picture of real improvements and very worrying developments. The important message is that nothing is yet finalised. For more detailed and current information please contact PETA.
How Proposals Become Law
The process by which a proposal like this one becomes law in the European Union is complicated. The draft produced by the European Commission must be considered and agreed upon by the European Parliament and the governments of all the EU's 27 countries. The first stage is within the Parliament, where the proposal and amendments were put before the Parliament as a whole in May. The version their vote produced has been taken to the Council of Ministers (representing all the governments), who have been conducting their own discussions. Now, the Council and certain key MEPs are negotiating behind closed doors. It is possible that a deal will be struck in the near future or that negotiations will fail, in which case, the proposal returns to the Parliament as a whole. PETA is monitoring the situation and taking action as appropriate – after years of delay, the situation is now moving very quickly.
