Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-01-15-Speech-3-059"
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"en.20030115.4.3-059"2
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"Madam President, we have been on a long journey. This third reading stage it is not the end of the journey, but it is a very significant point on that road towards the protection of human health and the enhancement of animal welfare. That is why the rapporteur has rightly received the plaudits today because she has taken us along that road.
When we hear the phrase 'long gestation periods' we have tended hitherto to think of elephants. In future we will think of European legislation. It has been a long gestation period. We then had a long period in labour from 4 p.m. in the afternoon until 4 a.m. in the morning, and at the end we gave birth to a programme which will stand the test, which is why we welcome this point on the debate today.
The Commission originally came forward with a proposal to end tests. However, that would have done no more than the proposal which went through in the United Kingdom, which ended testing on animals, but which simply resulted in the tests on animals being exported. We were in danger of doing just that and putting the testing into countries where the welfare of animals was a much lower priority than it is within the Member States. It was right that we moved the debate on to the end of the marketing of products tested on animals within the European Union.
We reminded ourselves, and we do so again, that on 1 July the sixth amendment came into force. Technically that would have brought any research using animals to a standstill. There would have been no further progress on the production of new items, not just in the makeup field, but in areas such as medicated shampoos and dental hygiene.
We looked beyond that and we see the seventh amendment as the last chance. It sets the target dates to end that marketing. We decided that a blanket target date was not sustainable and so we looked for a timetable, and as a validated alternative becomes available for each test, that test on animals will be banned. All such tests will be banned within the six years with the exception of the three to which the rapporteur has drawn attention, for which there will be a ten-year permitted timetable and a possibility of an extension of two years if, and only if, this Parliament endorses that extension through codecision.
Now the challenge is not only to the Commission, other colleagues have said that, but it is to the industry. It is up to the industry to accelerate that search for validated alternatives. The cooperation that exists already between Parliament and industry has been impressive. It has helped to convince firstly the Commission, and then even the minority on the Council which was reluctant to go along with this. This minority too came into line and that is why we are at the point we are today, in optimistic mode."@en1
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