Brussels, 04/03/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 4 March, the European Commission announced that it had officially received the European citizens' initiative (ECI) 'Stop Vivisection', which has received more than 1.1 million authenticated signatures.
This ECI (the 3rd to be analysed by the Commission) calls on the European Commission to annul directive 2010/63/EU on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes and instead to present a new proposed directive aiming to put an end to animal experimentation and to make the use of data relevant to the human species obligatory in biomedical and toxicological research.
Support for this ECI reached the minimum number of signatures required in Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain. Over the next three months, the Commission will invite its organisers to Brussels to explain their points of view and a hearing will take place at the European Parliament. The Commission will then decide whether or not it will change the legislation.
The current legislation, which dates from 2010, limits and enshrines the use of animals for experimental purposes, providing for tests on animals to be replaced wherever possible with an alternative method, and recommending that the pain and suffering inflicted on the animals be kept to a minimum. However, the use of animals is still possible to move forward human, animal and disease research (cancer, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease). According to the figures published by the Commission in 2011, some 11.5 million animals were subjected to testing for scientific purposes in 2011. (Lionel Changeur).
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