Brussels, 28/10/2013 (Agence Europe) - Just before the 1 November deadline, organisers of the Stop Vivisection petition announced that they have the one million signatures required to launch a European Citizens' Initiative (ECI). Their aim is to put a stop, in time, to all forms of live animal testing. Another two ECIs have also gathered a million signatures, namely “Right2Water” and “One of Us” (protection of human embryos, see EUROPE 10923).
The organisers of the Stop Vivisection petition say that they have gathered more than a million signatures and obtained the legal minimum number of signatures in seven member states, as required by the ECI rules. The European Commission says Stop Vivisection has gathered signatures in all 28 member states and has met the national thresholds in ten member states.
Stop Vivisection wants the European Commission to repeal EU Directive 2010/63 on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes and to unveil a new directive instead to put a stop to animal testing and make it compulsory to use human data in biomedical and poisons research, rather than animal data.
The Commission will now verify the signatures and then meet the organisers to discuss their demand, before giving a formal response - either unveiling draft legislation as requested in the petition or explaining why it will not do so. (LC/transl.fl)