A wide-ranging petition calling for greater controls on animal testing and a roadmap to phase it out in the EU has passed its first hurdle.
The EU Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) Save cruelty free cosmetics – commit to a Europe without animal testing met its 31 August deadline to achieve more than one million signatures (1.4 million).
There are three parts to the petition, that is fronted by animal rights group PETA. The first two call for an end to the current legal requirement to use animal testing to protect industry workers and the environment from potentially toxic chemicals in cosmetics and other products.
The third part calls for ‘a legislative proposal plotting a roadmap to phase-out all animal testing in the EU before the end of the current legislative term’ - echoing the vote last year by the European Parliament.
Once the signatures have been checked the EU Commission has six months to respond and suggest follow-up measures. In 2013, a similar ECI led to the organisation of a scientific conference in Brussels to discuss non-animal methods in animal testing.
A detailed explanation of the ECI and the current cosmetic ban are set out in articles just published by TVV, the advocacy group for animal research in Germany.
The current EU ban on cosmetic testing only covers the small quantities of the same chemicals in consumer items.
See also the previous EARA News Digest article on the debate surrounding the future non-animal alternatives for toxicity testing.
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