EU publishes roadmap for phasing out animal testing for chemicals
- Press release
Concrete measures and targets planned
The European Commission has published its long-awaited roadmap for the gradual phase-out of animal testing for chemicals. This roadmap is the result of the European Citizens' Initiative "Safe Cruelty Free Cosmetics – For a Europe Without Animal Testing," which gathered 1.2 million signatures. The nationwide organization Doctors Against Animal Experiments welcomes the publication as an important step towards testing without animal experiments.
Each year in the EU, approximately one million animals are used and killed for regulatory testing – which accounts for about 13% of the total number of eight million animals used. For example, rats and mice are force-fed toxic chemicals daily via gastric tube over a period of several months. The consequences may include pain, inflammation, bleeding, organ failure, and ultimately death. Pregnant animals are also administered substances every day to investigate potential effects on their offspring.
With its roadmap, the European Commission now reaffirms its commitment to completely phase out animal testing for safety assessment across 15 regulatory areas in the EU. These include industrial chemicals, substances used in consumer products, pesticides, biocides, pharmaceuticals, food and feed additives, as well as the assessment of the biocompatibility of medical devices.
However, important regulatory areas remain excluded: biologics, vaccines, gene therapies, and human and veterinary medicines for novel therapies that are not classified as chemicals do not fall within the scope of the roadmap.
The roadmap contains more than 20 measures and concrete targets for the first implementation phase. By 2027, the Commission plans to publish a report identifying the key regulatory areas where animal-free methods are needed most and setting priorities for their development. This report will subsequently be updated every three years.
As a "short-term" measure, the Commission plans to incorporate already available animal-free test methods into legislation and guidance documents by 2029 and to eliminate "unnecessary" animal tests. Less mature testing systems will also be adopted once they have reached a sufficient level of scientific readiness. A conference is likewise planned for 2029 to assess the progress made and define further objectives and measures.
By the end of 2026, the Commission also intends to establish a publicly accessible platform providing regular updates on the implementation of the roadmap. This is intended to strengthen transparency and accountability towards citizens and other stakeholders.
Notably, the roadmap is a direct outcome of a European Citizens' Initiative (ECI), an instrument of direct democratic participation at EU level. If at least one million valid signatures are collected within twelve months, the European Commission is required to consider the initiative. Between 2021 and 2022, more than 1.2 million signatures were collected for the initiative "Safe Cruelty Free Cosmetics – For a Europe Without Animal Testing." Doctors Against Animal Experiments not only played a key role in this campaign but was also directly involved in developing the roadmap through its participation in EU-level working bodies.
"Although large areas of animal experimentation, such as basic and applied research, remain outside the scope of the roadmap and the proposed timelines are very long, the EU roadmap nevertheless represents a highly welcome step towards the abolition of all animal experiments," comments Dr. med. vet. Corina Gericke, vice chair of Doctors Against Animal Experiments. "For the first time, concrete milestones and targets have been established for the transition away from animal testing in the field of regulatory chemical safety assessment. The roadmap also demonstrates impressively that civic engagement can make a real difference."
Doctors Against Animal Experiments will closely monitor the implementation of the roadmap and will continue to advocate for the complete abolition of all animal experiments.