The EU has identified serious shortcomings in Croatia's system for monitoring the welfare of farm animals transported by sea, according to a report by the EU Food and Veterinary Office (FVO) published on Wednesday 6 March.
The audit assessed the effectiveness of the measures in place in Croatia to prevent injury and undue suffering to animals during the transport of livestock by sea to non-EU countries.
The system in place is “insufficient to minimise the risks that can negatively affect the welfare of the animals that arrive at the port and that are transported by sea”, the report states.
Experts believe that the Croatian system to approve livestock vessels for transport in the EU and for inspecting them before each loading “does not minimise the risk of adverse welfare conditions for the animals during the journey”. This happens because the veterinary inspectors have neither sufficiently detailed instructions nor sufficient technical knowledge to properly assess the vessel's facilities.
In addition, the current arrangements at the port “do not guarantee the welfare of the animals if there is a delay in loading a vessel, as there are no contingency plans from the transporter or from the authorities to deal with such a situation”, writes the FVO. Finally, the Croatian authorities do not detect weaknesses in their controls “and thus they cannot correct them or check the effectiveness of the official controls at the port”. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)