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EU adopts new housing and welfare guidelines
On the 18th June, the European Commission adopted new guidelines for the accomodation and care of laboratory animals. These guidelines are the revised Appendix A of the Council of Europe Convention ETS123.The original EU guidelines were set out in a 12-page annexe to Directive 86/609. Starting in 1998, the Council of Europe revised their equivalent guilines, eventually adopting a 109-page document containing much greater detail, higher welfare standards and significanrtly larger enclosure sizes for all the main species of laboratory animals.
During the revision process, the EU took the unusual step of ratifying the Convention, thus binding itself to adopting the new guidlelines. It completed this process by adopting a Recommendation on the revised guidelines in June. Although Recommendations are a type of EU legislation that is not binding on Member States, they do have a significant political impact. Since their adoption involves negotiation and a defined legislative proecedure, there is a substantive expectation that Member States will conform with them.
The full text of the new guidelines can be found at http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/EN/Treaties/PDF/123-Arev.pdf.