Document type: report published by Eurogroup for Animals
Author: Eurogroup for Animals
Preview: At the moment, the quality of an animal's life in the EU depends largely on which country they live in. Why? Because the EU's 27 Member States approach animal welfare issues in their own way. With only vague and outdated EU animal welfare laws to guide them, each country is left to interpret or set the rules as they see fit, leading to a highly fragmented landscape where few animals receive sufficient care.
Some of the key findings from the study are as follows:
- Only 6 Member States explicitly include animal welfare in their constitutions;
- 5 Member States still allow force-feeding for foie gras production;
- 16 Member States have no legislation for the protection of farmed fish;
- 25 Member States are actively in breach of a Directive that lays down the minimum standards for pigs kept for farming (mostly by still subjecting piglets to painful mutilations such as tail docking);
- While 16 Member States have a full ban on fur farming or no operational fur farms, 11 still need to take action, answering the calls of the EU citizens who voted for a ban on the industry in the Fur Free Europe ECI.
One of the study's main conclusions highlights the pressing need for an EU-wide ban on cage farming. Across Europe, the percentage of farm animals kept behind bars varies widely, with 99% kept in cages in Malta, 87% in Spain, 81% in Portugal, and on the other end of the scale, just 3% in Austria and 2% in Luxembourg. Even in the top-performing countries that are using cages far less, no Member State can claim to be completely cage-free. Until the EU adheres to the wishes of the 1.4 million EU citizens who signed the End the Cage Age ECI and legislates on an EU-wide cage ban, countless animals will continue to live in confinement.
Harmonised legislation
While some countries are leading the way when it comes to prioritising animal welfare, others are lagging behind. Modernising the EU's laws for animal welfare, factoring in everything from cage farming and live animal transport to species-specific welfare needs, would ensure the lives of millions of sentient beings are equally protected no matter where they are based. Harmonised standards would also support farmers and other operators in achieving better welfare for animals in their contexts. At the moment, over 430 laws, regulations and constitutional provisions govern animal protection across Europe, and the degree to which these affect individual Member States differs greatly. In some countries, only a handful of legislative acts govern all animal welfare issues, while in others, there are over 140 pieces of legislation to which to refer. This has created a very uneven playing field that only EU-wide animal welfare laws can balance.
20 years have passed since the EU updated the animal welfare legislation, and at least forty scientific opinions by the European Food Safety Authority have been published in that time. It is critical the EU's outdated laws are modernised and improved as soon as possible, ensuring all Member States are achieving the same high welfare standards for the kept animals in their systems, and leaving no species behind.
Link to the report (pdf)
