The European Commission unveiled a draft protocol on animal welfare today (Nov. 5) that proposes to ban testing on great apes including gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, and orangutans.

The pan-European initiative would extend a ban already in force in Austria, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Sweden across the entire 27-member bloc. The ban, however, would not greatly affect current research, because no testing has been carried out on great apes in the EU for the past six years.

Although research on other primates such as monkeys would not be affected under the proposed legislation, scientists are concerned that lawmakers in the European Parliament may call for amendments to further limit primate testing.

"We are facing a strong push to restrict in any way possible the use of monkeys in research at a time when it is most needed and when there is no alternative," Simon Festing, director of the Research Defence Society, told the Daily Telegraph.

The proposal, which if adopted would update existing EU legislation on animal testing from 1986, includes a special provision allowing experimentation on great apes in the case of an unexpected debilitating human epidemic, or if the survival of the ape species itself was at risk.

The Commission is also urging EU governments to improve the treatment of all animals used in experiments. Apart from great apes, around 12 million vertebrate animals are used each year throughout the EU. The draft proposal calls for a reduction in this number and for independent "ethical evaluations" of all research projects involving animal testing.

"It is absolutely important to steer away from testing on animals," Stavros Dimas, EU Environment Commissioner, said in a statement. "Scientific research must focus on finding alternative methods to animal testing, but where alternatives are not available the situation of animals still used in experiments must be improved."

The new proposal follows a decision last week by local lawmakers in Bremen, Germany, to halt University of Bremen neuroscientist Andreas Kreiter's studies involving macaques.

The proposal will probably be debated for at least a year before coming to a vote. A separate EU law banning the sale of cosmetics tested on animals is due to come into force next year.