EU Parliament votes against restriction of life-saving treatments to animals

In the last weeks, the European Parliament Environment (ENVI) committee again put forward a resolution trying to restrict certain antimicrobial classes from veterinary use, even though they currently have no role in the process. Four MEPs put forward a Motion for a Resolution against the latest Implementing Act on antimicrobials reserved for humans that the Commission has been consulting recently.
As a reminder, the implementing act is based on the Delegated Act, which was adopted last year, and on the EMA advice

The motion went for a vote on 14 June in the ENVI Committee. Important to know is that officially the European Parliament has no role in adopting an implementing act.

The main elements of the motion that went for a vote last week are:

  • MEPs say the IA exceeds the implementing powers and is not compatible with Regulation (EU) 2019/6;
  • That the IA fails to achieve a high level of protection of human health by failing to reserve any antimicrobials which are currently authorized for veterinary use;
  • They call upon the Commission to withdraw its draft IA and to submit a new draft to the committee in line with the criteria and the WHO’s highest priority, critically important antimicrobials;
  • They ask the Commission to amend Article 107(5) of Regulation (EU) 2019/6 to allow the off-label veterinary use of antimicrobials reserved for humans for the treatment of the individual, clinically ill animals (i.e., companion animals, zoo animals, wild animals, or food-producing animals) under certain conditions (life-threatening disease, susceptibility testing, etc.);

After the motion was adopted in the ENVI committee last week, it went for a vote in the plenary meeting today, on 23 June, and was voted against a motion. The veterinarians across Europe are relieved that once again science-based OneHealth approach won.

More:

FVE webpage

EPRUMA Statement against the motion.

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