Hearing for the organisers of the Save Cruelty Free Cosmetics ECI at the European Parliament
One Voice was at the European Parliament in front of MEPs to support the ECI on animal testing.
On Thursday 25 May 2023, One Voice was at the European Parliament where the Save Cruelty Free Cosmetics ECI was presented to parliamentarians from member states on the follow-up to be given to this Initiative, which gathered together more than one million European citizens for laboratory animals. With our partners, we continue to rally so that the directive on cosmetic products will not be trampled and to obtain the implementation of an exit plan for animal testing.
After our hearing by the European commissioners to whom we submitted the official signatures for the Save Cruelty Free Cosmetics ECI last March, the Initiative, driven in particular by the two specialised coalitions that we are part of, the ECEAE and Cruelty Free Europe, continues to progress in European political institutions.
The subsequent step was the parliamentarian hearing, planned by the competent committees of the European Parliament. This was divided into three parts corresponding to the three objectives of the ECI:
- To protect and reinforce the ban on testing on animals in cosmetics: to initiate a legislative change in order to ensure the protection of consumers, employees, and the environment relating to all cosmetic ingredients, without resorting to animal testing in any way.
- To transform European regulations on chemical products: to guarantee the protection of human and environmental health by managing chemical products without adding new requirements in relation to animal testing.
- To modernise science within the EU: to engage in coming up with a bill and to establish a road map in order to progressively eliminate all tests on animals in the EU before the end of the current legislation.
The organisers of the ECI, Cruelty Free Europe, Eurogroup for Animals, the Coalition européenne pour mettre fin à l’expérimentation animale (ECEAE) [European Coalition to put an end to animal testing], Humane Society International/Europe, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), have proposed actions for a profitable scenario for all parties (science, society, and animals) by supporting a transitional plan towards non-animal science once again.
Emily McIvor (ECEAE, left photo) and Emma Grange (Cruelty Free Europe, right photo) with Jessica Lefèvre-Grave (One Voice)
During the debates, some members of the European parliament were able to express their fears or objections, gladly caricaturing our positions and playing on fear as the animal testing lobby tries so hard to do to discourage any progress. Their arguments are easy to outwit because they are irrelevant.
The members of parliament who support us
But the radical voices were thankfully drowned out by the many supportive voices. For example, we received valued support from two French Members of the European Parliament: Caroline Roose, from the Verts-ALE group, who stepped in to mention our long-standing fights against dog breeding farms in Gannat and Mézilles and the capture of primates in Mauritius destined for laboratories, and Aurélia Beigneux, from the Identité et démocratie [Identity and Democracy] Group, who herself also supported the ECI during this discussion.
The Luxembourg Member of the European Parliament Tilly Metz, on the next table and a member of the same group as Caroline Roose, expressed her strong favour of a Green Pact for Europe, which would not make animals pay for REACH and CLP regulations to be reinforced on chemical pollutants. This point should not even be negotiable, with the reduction in testing on animals being supported supposedly being a requirement of the European Directive.
Leaders for the animal cause, European institutions are nonetheless looking for compromise…
The Directorate-General for the Interior Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship, and SMEs has committed to “trying to be as ambitious as possible”
in order to reach its “ultimate goal of progressively eliminating tests on animals in the long term”. We are counting on a strong commitment from elected representatives, with the European Parliament having unanimously stated this in its 2021 resolution for the principle of an exit from animal testing.
The risk, however, is that in the absence of alternative usable methods everywhere and for everyone, our representatives remain in status quo. However, it will be possible to relax the regulations to allow a solution for other methods before medications being put on the market, to decide to attribute a much more significant budget for alternative research, or even for the obligation to use them where they already exist.
It is likely that the Commission will want to respect the requests of its people without going as far as we are asking. For this, institutions know how to highlight the progress already made, or to compare the European situation with other continents that are less careful in this area.
Following their huge support for the ECI, citizens expect European institutions to live up to their rallying for the 10 million animals that pass via laboratory cages and benches every year in European laboratories. We will remain committed and vigilant before the final and detailed response which the European Commission must deliver between now and 25 July 2023.
Translated from the French by Joely Justice