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Commission discusses wording for the new Directive
At a closed meeting held by the European Commssion the proposed wording for parts of the new Directive was discussed
The European Commission holds regular meetings of the government officials from the Member States who are responsible for the implementation of Directive 86/609/EEC on animal experimentation. A group of key stakeholder associations, which includes EBRA, are invited to attend these meetings as observers.
The most recent of these meetings was held in January and much of it was about the revision of the Directive. The main public consultation was carried out over the summer but, in the spirit of transparency, the Commission officials provided the participants with a working paper outlining the main elements and giving initial suggestions for the wording of certain key parts of the new Directive. The Member States and stakeholder groups were asked to provide comments and feedback. The Commission made it clear that the suggested wording was preliminary and they expected some of it to change as a result of the comments received.
Many of these initial proposals follow the ideas suggested in the preliminary impact assessment which was used for the expert consultation in July and August 2006. Although there have been some improvements, there are still a significant number of matters of concern for the academic research community and we will continue to press the Commission for these to be addressed.
The restricted status of the working paper means that we cannot discuss the specific points in this article, but EBRA is in the process of consulting its fellow members of the European Coalition for Biomedical Research and will provide the Commission with a response reflecting their comments.