WRITTEN QUESTION E-3396/02 by Avril Doyle (PPE-DE) to the Commission. Experimentation on chimpanzees.
Date: 2002-11-28
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: Netherlands, animal experimentation, animal welfare, monkey, protection of animals, scientific research

3.7.2003

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 155 E/149

industry on personal data and privacy issues, the Commission will continue to stress that software should
be designed to be privacy friendly and that defaults should be set in such a way that users have adequate
control over third party access to their terminal equipment and to data stored on that equipment.

(1) OJ L 201, 31.7.2002.

(2003/C 155 E/165)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-3396/02

by Avril Doyle (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(28 November 2002)

Subject: Experimentation on chimpanzees

What is the Commission’s view on continued experimentation on chimpanzees at the Biomedical Primate
Research Centre in the Netherlands,
the only remaining facility in the European Union still using
chimpanzees for experiments?

The laboratory situated near The Hague is planning one final experiment on six healthy infant
chimpanzees by infecting them with the incurable hepatitis C virus. I urge the Commission to intervene
to prevent this one final experiment at the Biomedical Primate Research Centre.

Answer given by Mrs Wallström on behalf of the Commission

(8 January 2003)

Experimentation on animals falls under Council Directive 86/609/EEC on the approximation of laws,
regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States regarding the protection of animals used
for experimental and other scientific purposes (1). The Directive states that animal experiments shall not be
performed if another scientifically satisfactory method is reasonably and practicably available (Article 7.2).
The choice of the animal species should also be carefully considered (Article 7.3).

The implementation of the Directive is the responsibility of the national authorities, in this case the Dutch
authority. So far, the Commission has not received any information that indicates that the proposed
experiment is in breach of the Directive.

The Commission is aware that the use of non-human primates such as chimpanzees in experiments is a
sensitive issue. In the upcoming revision of the Directive, this issue will play an important role.

(1) OJ L 358, 18.12.1986.

(2003/C 155 E/166)

WRITTEN QUESTION P-3398/02

by Carlos Ripoll y Martínez de Bedoya (PPE-DE) to the Commission

Subject: The ‘Prestige’ incidence off the Galician coast

(22 November 2002)

On Wednesday, 13 November, the oil tanker ‘Prestige’ on route from Latvia to Gibraltar was damaged and
destabilised, apparently by the heavy seas caused by the storm off Finisterre. The Spanish authorities were
as a result forced to activate appropriate rescue and safety proc-edures, thus preventing an ecological and
environmental disaster of unforeseeable dimensions, whose consequences could have been far worse than
was actually the case

Given that the available information indicates that the ‘Prestige’ underwent compulsory inspection in
Rotterdam Harbour in 1999, during which anomalies were detected, and that there is no news of the
vessel’s being re-inspected, despite the fact that it has called at Community ports.