The Body Shop and Dove announce that they are joining forces with leading international animal protection organizations to urge the European Union to uphold laws to ban animal testing. The goal is to collect one million signatures in the fastest timeframe in the history of any European Citizens’ Initiative.
“The beauty industry today calls on consumers to sign the European Citizens’ Initiative, a petition undertaken by animal rights groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), Cruelty Free Europe, Humane Society International (HSI), Eurogroup for Animals and the European Coalition to End Animal Experiments (ECEAE),” explain Dove and The Body Shop in a joint statement.
The aim is to “mobilize one million European citizens now and demand that laws banning cosmetics testing on animals be upheld.”
As a reminder, testing of cosmetic products and ingredients has been banned in Europe since 2004 and 2009 respectively. The ban on the sale of cosmetic products that have been tested on animals came into force in 2013.
But recently, the ECHA (European Chemicals Agency) requested from the industry, in the framework of the REACH Regulation, animal test results for two UV filters used exclusively in cosmetics: Homosalate and Ethylhexyl Salicylate. Request validated by the Agency’s Board of Appeal in August 2020.
Animal rights groups were obviously moved by this decision and initiated a European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) entitled “Save cruelty-free cosmetics - Commit to a Europe without animal testing”.
The Commission considered the initiative legally admissible and registered it …
