25 June 2008 - The South East’s Green MEP will address the AGM of the UK’s biggest animal welfare charity this weekend, leading calls for a review of European legislation in order to promote higher standards of animal welfare.

Dr Lucas MEP, a Vice President of the RSPCA and Vice President of the Animal Welfare Intergroup in the European Parliament, will speak at Kensington Town Hall on Saturday (28 June) on the need to bring EU laws on animal experiments and testing into the 21st century.

She will say: "As the European Commission prepares to publish draft legislation to update the EU’s animal experiments directive (Directive 86/609 EEC), I call on the EU to bring an end to the era of animal research and facilitate a transition to modern science without animal suffering.

"The existing law on the use of animals in experiments and testing is over 20 years old and hundreds of thousands of animals currently receive no protection at all. The European Commission has been promising to update the directive for years and further delay is simply unacceptable."

Dr Lucas MEP will also highlight her campaign in the European Parliament for an outright ban on the import of seal products into the EU, which was stepped up after fresh evidence emerged in April of the extent of cruel practices in the Canadian seal hunt.

She commented: "Parliamentarians have time and again called for action on the mass seal culls that take place every year.

"Only a ban on the import of seal products into the EU will show that enough is enough, and prove to governments that barbaric annual displays of animal cruelty will no longer be tolerated."

ENDS