During a debate at the plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Thursday 19 December, the Commissioner for Animal Health and Welfare, Olivér Várhelyi, gave assurances that he would “modernise existing animal welfare standards” and begin a “follow-up” to European citizens’ initiatives (ECIs), including the one calling for an end to the use of cages.
An open debate will be held next year, including farmers, with a view to publishing the first proposals in 2026, he explained. When drawing up new rules, the Commission will take full account of the specific features of the various livestock sectors. “Our work should aim to deal with the first sectors as early as 2026, with legislative proposals based on broad consultations next year,” said Mr Várhelyi.
Tilly Metz (Greens/EFA, Luxembourg), co-rapporteur with Daniel Buda (EPP, Romanian) on animal transport, complained: “How can this Parliament work effectively and coherently on the animal transport regulation when complementary proposals on slaughter, breeding and animal welfare labelling have still not been published?” The Commissioner confirmed that he would work on ending cages, but said nothing about labelling or slaughter. “ It's going to be very difficult to make progress on all these issues, but I'm going to put on all the pressure I can ,” Ms Metz told Agence Europe on Tuesday 17 December in Strasbourg. She said she expected the report on animal transport to be adopted by the European Parliament at the end of 2025.
“ Another instrument we must not forget is the application of our current rules,” retorted Olivér Várhelyi. “Better application of the rules would enable us to bring concrete benefits to our animals and farmers,” he said.
Making breeding possible. On the EPP side, Italy’s Herbert Dorfmann argued that animals should be able to be reared in the EU. “I sometimes get the impression that this fact is being called into question,” he lamented. Most ECIs aim to make it impossible to breed animals in the EU, according to the MEP. He said he was in favour of the EU requiring that poultry no longer be kept in cages, but “we must also guarantee that no imported eggs or poultry meat come from these caged farms”.
He deplored the fact that the EU would be importing a further 180,000 tonnes of duty-free chicken meat from Mercosur countries. Valérie Deloge (PfE, French) said she was “not sure that appointing an Animal Welfare Commissioner or reopening old texts in abeyance is the best solution”. She criticised the signing of free trade agreements with countries that have “little regard for the treatment of animals”, and the continued export of live animals to the Middle East “so that they can be ritually slaughtered there”.
“With your constant reforms, you are speeding up the closure of farms and threatening our livestock production; you are directly affecting our food sovereignty,” Mariateresa Vivaldini (ECR, Italian) also bemoaned. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)