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Council of Europe begin revising housing and husbandry guidelines
At the last Multilateral Consultation held under Council of Europe Convention ETS 123, it was agreed that the revision of Appendix A of the Convention should be on the agenda at the next Multilateral Consultation. This appendix provides a set of guidelines on the housing and husbandry standards which should be applied to laboratory animals in countries which have ratified the Convention. In addition to general advice about welfare aspects of laboratory animal housing and use, the appendix also contains tables of cages sizes.
Since the Multilateral Conventions are only held every few years, there was a danger that the process of revision could take a very long time. However, the Council of Europe has already initiated the mechanism to consider how the appendix should be revised. Four expert groups have been established to prepare draft amendments to the Appendix, with each group focusing on a different group of species.
The expert groups were created by inviting the organisations with observer status at the Multilateral Consultations to submit nominations. In addition to the representatives of member states, a number of organisations with observer status send representatives to take part in the Multilateral Consultations. These organisations include the Federation of European Laboratory Animal Science Associations, International Society for Applied Ethology, Eurogroup for Animal Welfare, the Federation of Veterinarians in Europe, the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industry Associations and EBRA. Currently, there are four expert groups considering a) rodents and rabbits, b) mini-pigs, c) dogs and cats, and d) non-human primates.
The four expert groups started meeting early in 1998 and are expected to continue meeting throughout the year. In addition to these meetings, the four co-ordinators will hold meetings to consider any differences between the proposals from the expert groups relating to those parts of Appendix A which apply to more than one group of species.
It is expected that the work of the expert groups will be complete in time for their proposals to be considered during 1999 by a working party of the Multilateral Consultation. This will seek to prepare a formal amendment of Appendix A for consideration at the next full Multilateral Consultation planned for 2000. A two-thirds majority vote is required to adopt the amended version of Appendix A. However, only those member states which are Parties to the Convention (ie they have both signed and ratified the Convention). If adopted, the amendment comes into force 12 months later, unless one third of the Parties to the Convention notify the Council of Europe of a formal objection.
Once the amended Appendix A has entered into force, those countries which are Parties to the Convention will be expected to amend the housing and husbandry guidelines issued under their national legislation, to bring it into conformity with the Convention. However, the most interesting question will be the effect of the EU Directive 86/609.
Whilst member states of the Council of Europe can choose whether or not to sign and ratify the Council of Europe's Convention ETS 123, EU member states are legally obliged to implement the EU Directive on animal experimentation into their national legislation (or by some equivalent mechanism). The EU itself has long been a signatory to the Council of Europe Convention and, during the recent UK presidency, the EU finally ratified the Convention. This means that the EU may have to implement any changes in Appendix A of the Convention by making equivalent changes to Annexe II of the Directive which is essentially identical to Appendix A.
How long it would take for the EU to make these changes to the Directive is uncertain. The Directive does not contain any mechanism to permit it to be modified, so it may be argued that any modification would need to go through one of the mechanisms for primary legislation, including referral to the European Parliament. On the face of it, this seems an unlikely route, since it would open up the whole question of amending the Directive, attracting numerous proposals for change, much campaigning pressure and becoming the sort of issue that the Commission would rather avoid. Thus, the Commission might seek to use some indirect or informal method to introduce the changes. Just how this would work is quite unclear.