Brussels, 17/05/2016 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 17 May, most EU member states' farm ministers backed the idea of setting up an animal welfare platform, but the majority of countries insisted that the platform should be used for enhanced dialogue to improve respect of current legislation, rather than a working group putting forward new legislation.
Austria, Latvia and Poland were the only countries which protested against the creation of an animal welfare platform. A large number of member states say that such a platform should focus on the exchange of information and best practices, along with improving implementation of existing legislation.
Several agriculture ministers, including those of France, Ireland, Croatia, Poland, Luxembourg, Portugal and the United Kingdom, asked for animal welfare on farms to be covered in the trade talks with non-EU countries, particularly the United States and Mercosur countries. Several member states called for imports from outside the EU to respect the EU's tight animal welfare rules.
Scandinavian countries are greatly in favour of enhancing animal welfare legislation, and mentioned the following subjects as areas of discussion on the platform - the castration of piglets, clipping the beaks of poultry, cropping piglet tails and long-distance animal transport. Other countries, such as Ireland, Malta, Romania, Estonia, Bulgaria and Germany, raised the sensitive issue of animal transport times.
The Danish minister, Esben Lunde Larsen, said that the vast majority of Europeans want better animal protection and “one must not ignore this message”.
The French minister, Stephane Le Foll, brought up as a subject of discussion free-range farming, particularly for laying hens.
The Czech Republic mentioned as subjects of debate education about animal welfare, animal health, veterinary products and tackling resistance to antibiotics.
Belgian minister Willy Borsus mentioned research into alternative castration methods for piglets (working towards a ban on castration), the registration of stray cats and dogs. Portugal brought up the question of abattoirs, welfare indicators and harmonisation of rules on pets.
Italian minister Maurizio Martina stressed the need to keep consumers informed about animal welfare rules and allow flexibility for regional specialities.
Germany secretary of state Robert Kloos stressed that the platform must not lead to new legislation and suggested the following topics of discussion: uniform transposition of EU law (long distance transport rules), illegal trade and castration of piglets.
Following a discussion at the Council in February 2016 on setting up an EU animal welfare platform, the Dutch Presidency of the Council of the EU invited the European Commission to learn lesions from the recent Eurobarometer poll on animal welfare and gives details of progress in setting up the platform. The Dutch Presidency says the platform could be made up of representatives of stakeholders and the member states. Meetings with stakeholders and the member states took place on the question of an animal welfare platform on 23 and 24 February this year.
The European Commission said that it was working on setting up the platform and said that NGOs, stakeholders and MEPs should also be involved in the work. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)