Brussels, 22/06/2012 (Agence Europe) - European Health Commissioner John Dalli said after the Agriculture Council in Luxembourg on 18 June that he was pleased to report that much progress had been made on bringing pens for pregnant sows up to standard over the last few months. The European directive is due to come into force on 1 January 2013.
Some 18 states (compared with 16 two months ago) have said that they will be able to comply with EU law by 2013 (Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom). Five member states expect to achieve 90% compliance: Austria, Finland, Greece, Poland and Slovenia. Two will be somewhere between 70% and 90%: Cyprus and Italy. France and Portugal have said that they will not be in a position to gauge the level of compliance of their farms by 1 January next year. For the moment, the countries which are lagging furthest behind are Belgium, France, Ireland and Portugal where only 40% of farms comply with the new rules. (LC/transl.rt)