Luxembourg, 02/07/2001 (Agence Europe) - The Court of Justice will decide on the Jippes foot and mouth disease case on 12 July 2001. It will rule on whether the EU's current policy, concentrating on the cull of animals, is too radical and therefore disproportionate with the aim of combating the disease.
Ms Jippes is a Dutch woman who keeps four sheep and two goats, which she wanted to vaccinate for foot and mouth disease at the height of the epidemic, requesting permission to vaccinate from the Ministry of Agriculture.
Having received no response, she submitted a complaint and applied to the President of the College van Beroep voor het Bedrijfsleven (Administrative Court for Trade and Industry) in The Hague for leave to vaccinate. Her appeal was supported by the Groningen and Assen sections of the Dutch animal welfare association. Before ruling , the Dutch court sent the case to the European Court of Justice, asking whether the EU's current policy was compatible with European law.
The Dutch court asked the Court of Justice to use the accelerated procedure (whereby the Court rules in a few months on cases of "exceptional urgency") rather than normal proceedings which can take up to two years. The Court agreed to use the accelerated procedure.
At the hearing in June, Ms Jippes' lawyer, Cees Dekker wanted from the outset to minimise the legal implications of the case by removing what he described as a "misunderstanding". He argued that his client was not asking for a ruling on the options for combating foot and mouth disease but simply for the right to administer vaccinations under the animal welfare legislation laid down in various items of EU law.
Hanna Sevenster, for the Dutch government, argued that other policies might have been feasible, but that was not the issue that had been raised. He said that nobody had claimed that only one policy was feasible, but the government had had good reasons for choosing the policy it chose. As for animal welfare, simply referring to the principle did not mean that it was a general principle.
Jörgen Molde, for the Danish government, told the hearing that he was 'astonished' that the accelerated procedure had been used for a case of such a restricted nature, but the fact that representatives of various governments had attended the hearing showed how seriously they were taking the fight against foot and mouth disease. There were no legal flaws in the EU's non-vaccination policy. The practicalities of inoculating 300 million animals against a disease with various strains and sub-strains with a vaccine that is only active for a limited period of time would be a "Herculean task". For Ioannis Chalkias, Greece totally supported the current policy. No softer option existed - culling was the only way to eradicate the disease. He said that the Court was to "rubberstamp" the EU's policy by noting that it is does not contravene the principle of proportionality, adding that Ms Jippes was a "very nice" person who felt very strongly about preventing animal suffering, but that she had created a new category of domestic pet. Ireland's Gerard Hogan argued that the current policy was the only effective one and was echoed in this by Finland's Tula Pynnä who described foot and mouth disease as a serious disease requiring effective treatment.
Annemie Colaert, for the Council of the European Union, recalled why the non-vaccination policy had been found to be the best policy. Big problems needed big solutions. European policy took account of animal welfare since animal welfare meant eradicating the disease. For the European Commission, Thomas van Rijn explained that the EU's policy aimed at eradicating foot and mouth disease for economic reasons but also, more importantly, to protect and improve livestock health since farming was no hobby. Mr van Rijn explained the background to the Dutch situation, where in order to eliminate some thirty outbreaks, the country had been authorised to vaccinate animals but that they were obliged to cull animals within a 27-kilometre radius of an outbreak once there was sufficient abattoir capacity.