Mr President, it is estimated that around 12 million vertebrate animals are used annually in the European Union for the development and the testing of drugs, vaccines, chemicals and other products. A further nine million are bred and destroyed as surplus to requirements. Since Directive 86/609, which controls the use of animals in experiments, was first implemented more than 16 years ago, a great deal has changed. The original purpose of the Directive was to avoid distortions in trade. The European Union did not then have a duty, as it does now, to consider the welfare of animals in agriculture, research, transport or single market policies. Today, animal welfare is the subject of extensive public debate and interest and concern about the use of animals has escalated. Also, enormous progress has been made in scientific knowledge and practice. For these reasons, as well as deficiencies in the actual operation of the Directive, with many cases of infringement action taken by the Commission over the years, it is clear that this Directive is in urgent need of revision. The Commission has already made a commitment to review the Directive next year. I hope that the points on which we have focussed in this report will guide their work because there are many lessons to be learnt. The first is the need for a central European Union inspectorate to coordinate the work of inspectors in the Member States but with the power to visit facilities and revoke licences if necessary. In 1986, Parliament called for a standing committee to monitor the implementation of the Directive but it was not done. I believe this has proved to be a mistake. There is great variation between the Member States in the way that information is collated and in the way that replacement, reduction and refinement are applied. For example, the Commission has already published two sets of statistics on the number and use of animals in experiments. The data is required every three years. It does not have to contain very much detail and there has been no standard format for presenting it. Some Member States publish very detailed statistics annually while others publish the bare minimum as infrequently as possible. This has made evaluating the implementation of the Directive difficult. We need data to be published annually and in a standard format. The use of alternative testing methods is, of course, central. Animal experiments should be seen as exceptions to the rule rather than normal scientific procedures. Work on alternatives is progressing fast. This is where Member States should be concentrating and giving priority. Related to this is Article 7(2) of this Directive, which states that animals should be used for experiments only where there is no scientifically viable alternative. Given that the Commission does not currently require detailed information on statistics, it is impossible to monitor whether this article is actually being implemented. That is why the report recommends a central EU database including information on all animal experiments approved, currently performed and finalised. This would allow for EU-wide checks to ensure that article was being implemented and that experiments were not being duplicated. While the number of animals used for experiments had appeared to be reducing, the use of transgenic animals is rising. This is something that could not have been foreseen in 1986 when the Directive was adopted. There is inadequate provision for it in the Directive as a result. Transgenic animals must be included. Finally, many complaints from NGOs and other bodies and organisations relate to breaches of Article 5 on the general care and accommodation of animals. This can largely be overcome by an EU-wide standard training course including animal welfare and the ethics of experiments. There are four amendments to the report. I would like to thank my colleagues in the Committee on the Environment. I would also like to thank Mr Nisticò in particular for discussing his amendments with me. I regret that I cannot support amendments 1 and 2 as they weaken the report considerably on a point which is of great concern, that is, the use of primates, especially wild caught primates. I can support Amendment No 3. I believe there is general agreement in Parliament and in the Commission that Directive 86/609 is neither suitable nor effective today and that we need new legislation. I hope that the Commission will take up Parliament's recommendations.

Political group: Verts-ALE