EU court nixes cosmetics tested

(adding photo)(ANSA) - Brussels, September 21 - The European Court of Justice ruled Wednesday that cosmetics tested on animals outside the EU can legitimately be banned from being imported and sold within the Union. An EU law forbidding the cosmetics industry from engaging in animal testing, as well as the sale of such cosmetics, went into effect March 11, 2013.
    The European Federation for Cosmetic Ingredients (EFfCI) had petitioned the British judge sitting on the EU court to decide whether three of its members - who tested their products on animals in labs outside the EU for sale in China and Japan - are liable to sanctions if they try to put those same products on the market in Britain.
    "Europe has upheld its position against cosmetics animal testing and the ban on importing cosmetics tested on animals in foreign markets," said Anti-Vivisection League (LAV) President Gianluca Felicetti at the presentation of Animal Aid Live 2016, an animal rights benefit concert to be held September 25 in Rome's central Piazza del Popolo square.
    "The ruling is also a victory for the validity of scientific research without animals," Felicetti said, pointing out that "the EU's action has in the past spurred two large cosmetics-exporting countries such as India and Brazil to also ban this type of animal experimentation". French Greens MEP Pascal Durand hailed "a strong new message in favor of a more ethical science - animal experiments belong to another era to which the EU, the largest global market for cosmetics and cures, has put an end as other countries in the world have done".
    "This ruling is wonderful because it resolves the root of the problem we had - you can't test cosmetics on animals in Europe anymore, but the big companies do it abroad and then bring the products into Europe," said Italian Animal Rights non-profit chief Walter Caporale. "Now we can tell these companies: if you do animal experiments in America, in Africa, in Asia, we will call for a ban on your products," Caporale said.