Today we demand that European governments urgently act, as animal testing statistics released by the EU Commission reveal little change in the number of experiments on animals in the EU.

The report details the total number of animal experiments that took place in the EU between 2015 and 2017 alongside a breakdown number of experiments conducted in each country.

Despite increased public demand for a reduction in animal research, there has been little change since the previous report was published. Between 2015 and 2017, the total number of experiments on animals in European laboratories decreased by 2% from 9.78 million in 2015 to 9.58 million in 2017. However, there was an increase to 10.03 million in 2016.

The UK has emerged as the country which conducts the highest number of animal experiments in Europe (2,574,875 in 2017), replacing Germany as the biggest reported user of animals for research in the EU. Germany remains the second highest user completing 2,068, 813 experiments in 2017 while France was third with 1,914,174 tests that year.

Dr Katy Taylor, Our Director of Science, says: “The tiny decrease in overall numbers of animals used in Europe’s laboratories between 2015 and 2017, is far from the significant progress in ending animal research for which we had hoped. EU citizens have been betrayed by their governments for failing to listen to public demand and make real progress in reducing animal testing numbers. Most tests conducted in the EU are for research purposes which aren’t required by law so could and should be stopped tomorrow."​

We won't stop until no animal suffers anywhere in a laboratory. Will you make a gift to support our work? We rely entirely on the generosity of our supporters to create a world where nobody wants or believes we need to experiment on animals.