Victory: PETA Showers Eu Commission With Flowers As Commissioner Confirms Cosmetics Ban Will Go Ahead

For Immediate Release:

31 January 2013

Contact:

Ben Williamson +44 (0) 20 7837 6327, ext 229; [email protected]

 London – Following vigorous campaigns by PETA and its international affiliates that included public protests, phone calls and more than 20,000 e-mails to the European Commission, officials have confirmed today that a full ban on the sale of animal-tested cosmetics will take effect in the EU in March 2013. In a meeting with the animal rights organisation in Brussels, the new commissioner, Tonio Borg, confirmed to PETA that the Commission is not planning to propose a postponement or a derogation to the ban, which is scheduled to take effect in little more than a month. PETA has responded by sending a huge bouquet of flowers in thanks and is encouraging supporters to do the same.

“This is a great day for animals, consumers and science”, says PETA Associate Director Mimi Bekhechi. “The 2013 ban reflects the public’s conviction that cosmetics cannot come before animals’ lives, and PETA is pleased that the Commission has responded to the campaigns to defend the ban and recognised the huge support that the ban has across Europe”.

In 2003, the European Parliament voted to end the sale of all cosmetics and toiletries containing ingredients tested on animals by 2013. Although the testing of cosmetics on animals is already banned in the EU, companies that test elsewhere can still sell their products in the EU until the total ban comes into effect. The cosmetics-testing ban has driven the development of non-animal testing methods, which can replace the use of animals in cosmetics testing and other forms of product-safety testing. The replacement of existing animal tests has already saved hundreds of thousands of animals, and many more can be saved as new techniques are developed and validated.

In China, officials are in the final stages of approving the use of the country’s very first non-animal testing methods for cosmetics ingredients, thanks to guidance from scientists funded by PETA US.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk.