Answer given by Mr Vella on behalf of the Commission

10.3.2016

The Honourable Member is informed that the answers provided on similar questions (E‐007342/2014 and P-012055/2015[1]) still hold as to the current situation, in which the Commission has no plans to develop an EU-wide ban of animal testing for household products.

The Honourable Member is referring to the EU-ToxRisk project, which just started in January 2016 and will be running for 6 years. The project is charged to develop more tools and strategies to ultimately allow an animal-free risk assessment of chemicals. At mid-term, the project is expected to deliver a limited set of animal-free procedures that could be used in the context of REACH. However, the full replacement of animals in safety testing of chemicals is unlikely to be achievable within the next decade.

The Commission will follow the project closely and review its results with respect to current legal provisions on testing methods.

• [1] http://www.europarl.europa.eu/plenary/en/parliamentary-questions.html