Brussels, 07/06/2012 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 7 June, addressing a number of MEPs, European Health Commissioner John Dalli vowed to review Regulation No1/2005 on the protection of livestock during transport, the services of Dan Jorgensen (S&D, Denmark) have announced. The commissioner is said to be willing to reduce the time livestock spend in transport.
On Thursday 7 June, nine MEPs - Dan Jorgensen, Pavel Poc (S&D), Carl Schlyter (Greens/EFA), Andrea Zanoni (ALDE), Oreste Rossi (EFD), Karl-Heinz Florenz (EPP), Jorg Leichtfried (S&D), Joanna Senyszyn (S&D) and Keith Taylor (Greens/EFA) - handed over a petition to John Dalli (8hours.eu) signed by 1.1 million people mainly calling for the transport of live animals on their way to slaughter to be no more than 8 hours.
Dan Jorgensen, who chairs the EP animal welfare intergroup and was behind the “8 hours campaign”, was pleased that the commissioner had promised to bring forward proposals for the revision of the existing legislation on animal transport times. “I have fought for shorter transportation times for many years now. Now it finally sounds like the commissioner is listening. This is a very big day”, commented Jorgensen.
The draft report by Janusz Wojciechowski (ECR, Poland) on animal protection during transport will be put to the vote in the EP agriculture committee on 9-10 July. Wojciechowski believes that the transport of animals over long distances is inhumane. It causes suffering to the animals and costs a lot of money. “The duration of transport over long distances must be limited”, he said.
In a statement adopted on 15 March 2012, the European Parliament once again called for eight hours to be the maximum amount of time animals for slaughter could be transported in the EU. (LC/transl.jl/rt)