The European Parliament’s board of inquiry on the protection of animals during transport continued its work on Monday 1 February during a public hearing on the difficult and deficient application of the European regulation on the subject (1/2005).
“It seems the problem is not necessarily the vague legislation, but poor enforcement, which, combined with a low level of training and insufficient staff, results in an unrealistic level of expectations of animal welfare standards”, said Socialist coordinator Carmen Avram (Romania), summarising a position subsequently defended by many more MEPs than those in her group alone.
Most have, in fact, denounced a lack of monitoring and advocated the establishment of effective and harmonised authorities and control mechanisms.
For the ECR group, represented by Peter Lundgren (Sweden), without a “paradigm shift in the notification and retaliation of competent authorities”, the number of infringements of Regulation 1/2005 cannot be reduced.
The coordinator of The Left, Anja Hazekamp (Netherlands), regretted that transporters are allowed to transport animals over long distances without any rest or feeding for the animals. On this point, several MEPs have denounced cases of falsified documents.
“It is absolutely impossible to guarantee animal welfare as long as this kind of practice is not under attack”, she insisted.
Possible solutions?
On the basis of this observation, the MEPs questioned the experts interviewed on possible solutions.
For Håkan Henrikson, veterinarian and Head of Trade and Industry at the Swedish Board of Agriculture, it is important that inspections are systematically carried out before and after transport.
Alexander Rabitsch, also a veterinarian and former animal welfare inspector, believes that veterinarians, in particular, should be obliged to carry out checks on lorries.
In his written answers to MEPs ahead of the hearing, Mr Rabitsch reported that a large number of lorries do not, for example, respect the need for adequate watering facilities and are almost never thoroughly inspected at loading points.
Stressing the regular breaches of the regulation, Mr Rabitsch confirmed that the Commission “ should not hesitate” to launch infringement proceedings.
Michael Marahrens, from the Friedrich-Loffler Institute, a veterinarian, insisted on the fact that the control capacities of the competent authorities for trip organisation remain “almost nil” in non-Member States.
MEPs have so far been unable to obtain any guarantees from the European Commission, whose representative, Peter Bokor - from the Health Directorate-General - said that the institution had “ limited resources, both in terms of developing the systems and in terms of auditing”. (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)