EU Commission proposes exemption to animal testing ban

According to the animal welfare organisation, the proposed exemption would allow certain animal tested products to remain on the cosmetics market in Europe.

EC ‘Health & Consumer Policy’ spokesperson, Frederic Vincent told CosmeticsDesign-Europe.com; “We will be releasing a proposal in the coming weeks in regards to products that may be exempt, our deadline is 2013, we must stringently stick to that.​”

Pressure ​

In recent months, the Commission has been under increasing pressure from various groups and even celebrities to enforce the marketing ban.

In November, Washington based doctors group, ‘Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine ‘delivered almost 25,000 letters from EU residents and people around the world to E.C. Commissioner John Dalli in support of sticking to the 2013 deadline.

Deadline ​

In 2011, the EC presented its yearly report to the European Parliament and Council​ highlighting the development of alternative methods to animal testing in cosmetics, stresses the continued commitment in Europe and worldwide to find alternative approaches.

Despite this commitment and progress in research finding alternative methods for testing, the Commission says these remaining ‘complex endpoints’ will not be possible by the 2013 deadline.

The Commission is required, according to Article 4a 2.3 of the Cosmetics Directive, to analyse whether for technical reasons one or more of the tests referred to in Article 4a 2.1 (repeated-dose toxicity, reproductive toxicity and toxicokinetics) will not be developed and validated before March 2013.