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European Parliament attempts to resurrect the 50% target
The Commission and Parliament continue to fight over the '5th Environmental Action Programme'.
The proposal for a target of a 50% reduction in the number of animals used in experiments across Europe by the year 2000 was included in the '5th Environmental Action Programme' when it was originally produced by the European Commission in 1992. This document contained over 100 targets for the year 2000 relating to many different areas of the environment. The 50% target for animal experiments was included, rather strangely, in the section on 'Risk and Accidents' and no explanation has ever been given for how it got there. The text of the '5th Environmental Action Programme' makes no reference at all to this target. Moreover, no starting date for the 50% reduction was given and the only mechanism proposed was the existing Directive 86/609 on animal experimentation, which contains no provisions to regulate the number of animal experiments performed.
On the face of it, this target appeared nonsense, and yet it was soon used by animal rights groups and by MEPs who wrongly asserted that it was the official policy of the EU. In fact, none of the targets in the '5th Environmental Action Programme' were adopted by the EU. Proposals from the European Commission first go to the European Parliament for debate and then pass to the Council of Ministers for decision. It is the Council of Ministers which actually decides whether or not to adopt measures into European law and in this case they merely noted the targets and did not adopt them.
In 1995 the European Commission proposed a 'review' of the '5th Environmental Action Programme, to ensure a renewed political impulse to the implementation of the 5th Programme and to overall progress on sustainable development'. The review proposed focusing on a more limited set of areas and effectively dropped all the targets contained in the original document.
However, like all Commission proposals, this had to go the European Parliament for debate. In this case it was being debated under the co-decision procedure, which gives the Parliament the power to block the proposal if they want to. Normally, under the consultation procedure, the Parliament could suggest amendments to Commission proposals, but the Commission would be under no obligation to accept those amendments. The co-decision procedure, however, allowed the Parliament to reject the document if the Commission did not accept enough of their amendments.
The proposal for a review of the '5th Environmental Action Programme' was debated at length in the Parliament on 13th November 1996. Many MEPs were very critical of the Commission's proposal, regarding it as a weakening of the original Programme. Overall, they proposed 102 amendments, including the re-introduction of some of the targets. As expected, these included (at amendment 100, shown below) the re-introduction of the 50% target.
With surprising speed, the Commission responded on 4th December to the amendments proposed by the European Parliament. The Commission was uncompromising. They agreed to accept only 12 out of the 102 amendments proposed by the Parliament. None of the attempts to re-introduce specific targets were accepted because they 'would create procedural difficulties' . Exactly what they mean by this is unclear, but many will interpret it as a way of avoiding saying that the specific targets were unrealistic or unachievable.
So what could happen next? Since this review of the '5th Environmental Action Programme' is being handled under the co-decision procedure, the European Parliament could use their powers to block it. In this case, the Parliament and the Commission have to create a Conciliation Committee to hammer out a version of the proposal which they can both accept and this version would then have to go back to the full Parliament for approval. This mechanism would certainly take a long time and, as we saw with the biotechnology patenting directive, it does not guarantee that the compromise reached will be accepted by the Parliament. However, it seems likely that the Commission will stick to its position of dropping all the specific targets and will persuade the Parliament to accept that idea. If this proposal did go to a Conciliation Committee, the longer it took to find a compromise, the shorter the time remaining for the targets to be implemented.