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Results of the public consultation
The Commission have released the results of the public consultation about the revision of the Directive, which contain few surprises
The results of the public and expert consultations on the revision of Directive 86/609, published by DG Environment just before Christmas, hold few surprises. 42,655 responses were received to the public consultation, from all 25 EU Member States, as well as from other countries. This was the third largest number of responses ever to a Commission internet consultation, said a spokesman, adding that this showed that there was considerable public interest in the area and that many people wanted the Commission to act to improve the welfare of animals.
93% of the respondents answered either “Yes, certainly” or “Yes, probably” to the question “Do you believe that more needs to be done to improve the level of welfare/protection of animals used in experiments at EU level?” 79% answered either “No, certainly not” or “No, probably not” to the question “Do you think that there is enough public funding at European level (e.g. EU Framework Programmes for research) into the development and validation of alternative methods to replace animals experiments?”
92% of respondents thought that the EU should lead in promoting a greater awareness of animal welfare and protection on the international stage, particularly when it came to experimental animals
The vast majority of respondents were young (69.9% under 40 years of age), and 74.4% female. Germany, UK, Finland and Italy topped the list of responders, with 59.2% of the total, while Poland, Slovenia, Ireland, Latvia, Estonia, Hungary, Greece, Luxembourg, Romania, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Malta, Cyprus, Bulgaria and Slovakia only mustered 4% between them.
The results of the expert questionnaire, to which there were 283 replies, giving over 12,000 specific comments, are still being analysed by DG Environment and will inform the draft legislation. However, according to the Commission, there was most agreement on issues such as scope, ethical evaluation of projects, ethical review process at establishments, EU inspections, requirements for training and competence, and statistical reporting. The least agreement was found on issues such as links between high animal welfare and decreased risk of violent extremist activity, CO2 anaesthesia, and the basis of impact calculations for purpose-bred F2 primates.
The full text of all the responses to the expert version of the questionnaire is available on the Commission web site at: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/chemicals/lab_animals/questionnaire2.htm