Brussels

Austria is to be taken to the European Court of Justice by the European Commission over claims that it has failed to implement adequately European animal-welfare rules on the care of stock animals that are being raised for use in experiments.

The rules form part of directive 86/609/EEC on the “protection of animals used for experimental and other scientific purposes”. The commission says that legislation covering the use of animals in experiments in Austria falls well short of the standards required by the directive. The court can order Austria to bring its regulations in line with European Union law, and levy fines of around 100,000 euros (US$98,000) a day if that ruling is ignored.

The commission says that Vienna has failed to adopt rules in the directive that apply to research centres that breed animals on their own premises, including rules on the general care and accommodation of animals, the role of responsible individuals, and the recording of data on breeding and supplying establishments.

But Andreas Bichl, head of the animal facility at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna, argues that “animals bred as in-house stock are not regulated at present and do not have to be recorded”. He argues that such animals are protected under general animal-cruelty laws, but not by specific legislation for experiments.

Austria should have implemented the directive by 1 January 1995, under its terms of accession to the European Union. At the time, the commission concluded that Austria had not complied, and launched an infringement procedure. Austria amended its law, but the commission has now concluded that the reforms were not comprehensive enough.

“If veterinary inspectors want to inspect our facilities, they have to adhere to the laboratory-animals law, which covers only 20 per cent of animals in house,” says Bichl. “Mice have a high rate of reproduction and [under the directive] we would have to record every litter; it would be a lot of administrative work.”

The commission has also threatened Belgium with court action for allegedly giving “insufficient recognition of data” from experiments in other member states, to avoid unnecessary duplication of animal experiments.