Will the Netherlands ever be free of animal testing?
The Netherlands free of animal testing by 2025; that ambition, formulated by the previous cabinet, has stayed with many people. Scientists doubt the feasibility of that ambition (see also elsewhere on this website). But what is the current situation?
The previous cabinet's ambition
The previous Dutch cabinet, Rutte II, expressed the ambition in 2016 to make the Netherlands ‘largely free of animal testing’ by 2025. The Netherlands should become an international leader, just as it had been in 1997 with the ban on animal testing for cosmetic products. The European Union followed that example in 2004.
Recommendations about feasibility
The Netherlands National Committee for the protection of animals used for scientific purposes (NCad), established in 2014 following a European directive, advised the cabinet on this ambition and on improving the welfare of laboratory animals in general. The NCad saw opportunities in a number of areas to ‘focus strongly on animal-free innovation’ before 2025. When it comes to legally required pre-clinical research (i.e. research into the effects and safety of new medicines), the NCad was not as quick to see opportunities for phasing it out.
The current government's ambition
The current cabinet, Rutte III, has loosened up on the target date of 2025 for making research largely free of animal testing. The Minister of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality, Carola Schouten, is responsible. In her most recent letter on this subject to the lower house of parliament on 11 December 2018, the minister writes: “It is my commitment (...) to do everything in my power to get animal-free innovation going in the highest gear. (...) I am fully committed to this, together with the partners of the Transition Programme for Innovation without the use of animals (TPI), which aims to accelerate the rate of innovation. I expressed this commitment in my letter from 1 June this year with the ambition formulated together with the partners: ‘The Netherlands as a forerunner in the international transition with animal-free innovation’. (...) The year 2025 is defined less strictly in the ambition. (...) By letting go of the year, and with it resistance, progress can be made. But this does not mean that the ambition for animal-free innovation has been abandoned or lessened.”
