EU budget for validating alternative methods to animal testing
28.2.2017
Question for written answer E-001306-17
to the Commission
Rule 130
Eleonora Evi (EFDD) , Rosa D'Amato (EFDD) , Isabella Adinolfi (EFDD) , Fabio Massimo Castaldo (EFDD) , Dario Tamburrano (EFDD) , David Borrelli (EFDD) , Stefan Eck (GUE/NGL) , Marco Zullo (EFDD)
Recital 46 of Directive 2010/63/EU states that:
‘The availability of alternative methods is highly dependent on the progress of the research into the development of alternatives. The Community Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development provided increasing funding for projects which aim to replace, reduce and refine the use of animals in procedures. In order to increase the competitiveness of research and industry in the Union and to replace, reduce and refine the use of animals in procedures, the Commission and the Member States should contribute through research and by other means to the development and validation of alternative approaches’.
However, the EURL-ECVAM budget is shrinking. According to the Commission’s answer to Written Question E-006302/2016, it amounted to just EUR 8 million in 2016 — a reduction on previous years.
In view of this, and the Commission’s communication on the European Citizens’ Initiative ‘Stop Vivisection’, in which it emphasised the availability of alternative approaches[1] and stated that it would review Directive 2010/63/EU in 2017:
- —How can EURL-ECVAM fulfil its task of validating alternative methods to animal testing effectively while its budget is increasingly stretched?
- —What is the EURL-ECVAM budget for the next three-year period (2017-2020)?
- —What have been the Member States’ financial contributions to the validation of alternative methods to date?
- [1] http://ec.europa.eu/environment/chemicals/lab_animals/pdf/vivisection/en.pdf, p. 7