Brussels, 05/04/2000 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission proposed, on Wednesday, to amend the Community legislation on cosmetics to ban, in time, all animal testing in this field. The current legislation (Directive 76/768/EEC) provides for the ban on marketing products containing substances tested on animals to take effect on 1 July 2000. By enlarging the scope of the ban, the Commission plans to do two things at once: definitively settle the question of animal welfare in the cosmetics sector and prevent all difficulties in Union trade with its partners, by guaranteeing compatibility of the Community legislation with the rules of the World Trade Organisation. The proposal provides for:
1) an immediate and definitive ban on animal testing for finished products;
2) a definitive ban on experiments on cosmetic ingredients, three years after entry into force of the directive;
3) the development of alternative and valid methods which replace animal testing (the Commission proposes that the Union take a leading role in the international approval of these alternative methods, mainly in the context of bilateral agreements and the OECD;
4) the annual publication, by the Commission, of guidelines for labelling products, which cannot mislead the consumer.