Document type : article published in Le Monde (subscriber edition)
Author: Mathilde Gérard
Preview: On Thursday, the European Commission published a revision of the regulations governing the transport of farm animals. These measures are a step in the right direction, but are insufficient, according to animal protection stakeholders.
The only surviving text from the planned European regulatory Big Bang on animal welfare: on Thursday December 7, the European Commission brought out new measures governing the conditions under which farm animals are transported. The revision has been long-awaited, as the current legislation dates back over twenty years, is obsolete on many points, and is poorly applied in the field.
But the three other texts that were to accompany it - on the welfare conditions of animals on farms and in abattoirs, and on labeling - have been postponed until after the European elections scheduled for June 2024. Officially, the Commission says it is continuing its work and refining the impact studies. But in the view of animal rights NGOs, the executive has missed its opportunity to bring in far-reaching reforms.
In May 2020, when it announced its "farm to fork" strategy, the agricultural and food sector version of the Green Deal, the Commission pledged to review all EU rules on farm animals, from birth to slaughter. The European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) was asked to produce a set of scientific opinions on the needs of each species, which concluded that new rules were needed.
Change of tone
The European Commission itself had carried out an assessment of current legislation, noting that it no longer matched the state of scientific knowledge. And in 2021, following a European citizens' initiative calling to end caged farming - one of the most popular of such initiatives in the European Union (EU) - the executive made the commitment to begin the transition towards a ban on cages in livestock farms from 2027.
However, the tone changed in 2023. The publication of the first impact studies introduced concern over the cost of transition, heightened by a general climate of inflation. The prospect of European elections and the rise of the far-right also created fresh tensions over the constraints of regulation and the agricultural models being promoted.
The battle over the Nature Restoration Bill, which sparked fierce debate in the European Parliament earlier this summer, has also made the executive more wary of entering fresh minefields. "The closer we get to the European elections, the more difficult it is to publish such a regulation, which affects a huge sector and a variety of very different players", comments Stéphanie Ghislain, public affairs officer for the Eurogroup for Animals platform of organizations. [end of part available without subscription]
