Directive 2003/15 - Amendment of Council Directive 76/768/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to cosmetic products - Main contents

official title

 

Legal instrument	Directive
Number legal act	Directive 2003/15
Original proposal	COM(2000)189
CELEX number i	32003L0015

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Directive 2003/15/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 February 2003 amending Council Directive 76/768/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to cosmetic products (Text with EEA relevance)

Official Journal L 066 , 11/03/2003 P. 0026 - 0035

Directive 2003/15/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council

of 27 February 2003

amending Council Directive 76/768/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to cosmetic products

(Text with EEA relevance)

THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,

Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, and in particular Article 95 thereof,

Having regard to the proposal from the Commission(1),

Having regard to the opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee(2),

Acting in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 251 of the Treaty in the light of the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee on 3 December 2002(3),

Whereas:

• (1) 

  Council Directive 76/768/EEC(4) has comprehensively harmonised the national laws relating to cosmetic products and has as its main objective the protection of public health. To this end, it continues to be indispensable to carry out certain toxicological tests to evaluate the safety of cosmetic products.

• (2) 

  The Protocol on protection and welfare of animals annexed by the Treaty of Amsterdam to the Treaty establishing the European Community provides that the Community and the Member States are to pay full regard to the welfare requirements of animals in the implementation of Community policies, in particular with regard to the internal market.

• (3) 

  Council Directive 86/609/EEC of 24 November 1986 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(5) has established common rules for the use of animals for experimental purposes within the Community and laid down the conditions under which such experiments must be carried out in the territory of the Member States. In particular, Article 7 of that Directive requires that animal experiments be replaced by alternative methods, when such methods exist and are scientifically satisfactory. In order to facilitate the development and use of alternative methods in the cosmetic sector which do not use live animals, specific provisions have been introduced by Council Directive 93/35/EEC of 14 June 1993 amending for the sixth time Directive 76/768/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to cosmetic products(6).

However, these provisions concern only alternative methods which do not use animals and they do not take account of alternative methods developed in order to reduce the number of animals used for experiments or to reduce their suffering. Therefore, in order to afford optimal protection to animals used for testing cosmetic products pending implementation of the prohibition of animal tests for cosmetic products and the marketing of animal-tested cosmetic products in the Community, these provisions should be amended in order to provide for the systematic use of alternative methods, which reduce the number of animals used or reduce the suffering caused, in those cases where full replacement alternatives are not yet available, as provided by Article 7(2) and (3) of Directive 86/609/EEC, when these methods offer consumers a level of protection equivalent to that of the conventional methods which they are intended to replace.

• (4) 

  In accordance with Directive 86/609/EEC and with Directive 93/35/EEC, it is essential that the aim of abolishing animal experiments for testing cosmetic products be pursued and that the prohibition of such experiments becomes effective in the territory of the Member States. In order to ensure that this...

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