Brussels, 08/05/2009 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 6 May, the European Parliament brought around one hundred amendments to the draft regulation on animal protection at the time of slaughter, in particular to clarify the rules, avoid unnecessary administrative constraints and ensure that imported products comply with European requirements.
With its adoption of the consultative report by Janusz Wojciechowski, by 367 votes to 97, with 45 abstentions, Parliament adopted, virtually unchanged, the outcome of deliberations in the Parliamentary agriculture committee (see EUROPE 9864). A few new amendments were added in plenary session, including one which says that the killing of surplus one-day old chicks, by whatever means, “shall no longer be permitted once appropriate alternatives to the killing of these animals are available”. Every year in the EU, nearly 360 million pigs, cattle and sheep, more than four billion poultry birds and over 4 billion animals reared for fur are slaughtered.
The EP approved the principle that animals must be slaughtered using only methods that ensure death instantly or after stunning, except in the cases of religious ritual, for which MEPs called for the current blanket exemption to be retained, rather than allowing exemptions to be decided at national level. The amendments state that “in accordance with religious rites, animals may be slaughtered without prior stunning, provided that this slaughtering takes place in a slaughterhouse”.
To avoid any unnecessary animal suffering, the EP said in the articles of the regulation that animals must be restrained only when the person responsible for stunning or killing is ready to perform the task, and that bleeding should start as soon as possible after stunning to ensure the animal does not regain consciousness before death.
While supporting the appointment of an animal welfare officer in every abattoir, the EP said that responsibility for ensuring compliance with the rules must lie with the operator or company, not with individual employees who cannot oversee enforcement of the rules. While MEPs also felt that small abattoirs, which slaughter fewer than 1,000 livestock units of mammals or 150,000 units of poultry per year, should also designate an animal welfare officer, they called for the procedure for obtaining a certificate of competence to be simplified.
More generally, Parliament called for a number of exemptions for small abattoirs with a slaughter capacity of under 50 livestock units of mammals per week or 150,000 poultry units per year. The EP also opposed the introduction of national reference centres in member states, the latter having already set up competent authorities.
MEPs said that the Commission must ensure that meat and other animal products imported from third countries must comply with European rules. They called for inspections to be carried out of abattoirs authorised to export to the EU, and for attestations that EU standards have been met to be added to the health certificates already required for imports. The EP also stressed the need to provide adequate financial aid for European producers to compensate for competitive disadvantages suffered.
Parliament called on the Commission to submit draft legislation by 1 January 2013 setting rules and conditions for the use of mobile abattoirs in the EU, guaranteeing that all precautions are taken in these mobile units that animal welfare is not compromised. (L.C./transl.rt)