Brussels, 20/01/2012 (Agence Europe) - The new animal welfare strategy for 2012-15, published by the European Commission on Thursday 19 January, has been rather better received by EU agricultural organisations and cooperatives (Copa-Cogeca) than by NGOs, which have expressed their disappointment at the lack of ambition of the document.
Copa-Cogeca welcomed that the Commission had put “the focus on ensuring current rules are enforced properly before developing new animal welfare requirements”. Its secretary general, Pekka Pesonen, warned however that the strategy lacked concrete initiatives “on how to better distribute along the food chain the high animal welfare production costs EU producers have to meet”. “Costs not met by our non-EU country partners”, he stated.
The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), on the other hand, said that the strategy that had been adopted was a missed opportunity for the Commission to show leadership by bringing consistency to the protection of animals affected by EU policies. It nonetheless welcomed the will to provide better information for consumers and the Establishment of a European Network of Reference Centres for animal welfare.
The Eurogroup for Animals said it was extremely disappointed by the strategy. It regrets that no new legislation is planned and calls for current animal protection rules to be toughened.
The NGO Compassion in World Farming has called the strategy too cautious and lacking the ambition required to make the changes badly needed for the EU's millions of farm animals. “Alarmingly, high profile issues like long distance transport and cloning are not even mentioned in the document”, regrets the organisation. (LC/transl.rt)