On Thursday 25 October, the European Parliament adopted two texts resulting from comprises with the Council aiming to reduce the use of antimicrobials on farms.
In its adoption of the reports by Françoise Grossetête (EPP, France) and Clara Eugenia Aguilera Garcia (S&D, Spain), the EP has finalised the result of the negotiations on the regulation on veterinary medicines (583 votes to 16 and 20 abstentions) and the regulation on the production, marketing and use of medical feed (583 votes to 31 and six abstentions).
The new legislation limits the prophylactic use (as a preventive measure, in the absence of clinical signs of infection) to single animals (rather than groups of animals) and only when fully justified by a veterinary surgeon, where there is a high risk of infection. Metaphylactic use (i.e. treating a group of animals when one shows signs of infection) should be a last resort and possible only once a veterinary surgeon has diagnosed infection and prescribed the antimicrobials.
Reserving antibiotics for humans. To help tackle antimicrobial resistance, the legislation gives the European Commission powers to select antibiotics to be reserved exclusively for treating humans.
Imports: prohibition on using antibiotics as growth promoters. The text requires imported foodstuffs to meet EU standards and prohibits the use of antibiotics to enhance the growth of animals.
To encourage research into new antimicrobials, the legislation provides for incentives, including longer periods of protection for technical documentation on new medicines, commercial protection for innovative active substances and the protection of significant investments in data generated to improve an existing antimicrobial product or to keep it on the market.
The agreement must now be adopted formally by the Council prior to publication in the Official Journal of the EU. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)