The EU and animal welfare

Over the years there has been a gradual evolution in Europe towards better standards and policy on animal welfare. Hand-in-hand with changes in farming and attitudes to animal welfare, has come a response to the conditions in which animals are kept and the way they are treated.

Often legislative and policy responses have gone in tandem with better scientific research into the distress felt by animals about the conditions in which they are kept.

The first piece of EU legislation to address concerns came in 1974 with a directive requiring farm animals to be stunned before slaughter. The rights watchdog, the Council of Europe, has also been active on animal welfare, introducing a convention in 1976 on protection of animals kept for farming purposes. The 1980s saw both the EU and the Council of Europe begin to address the issue of scientific testing on animals.

As farming standards developed in Europe, more pressure was applied to address what were considered specific problems in agriculture. In 1991 three EU directives were passed on the protection of animals during transport and minimum standards for protection of calves and pigs.

These laws, and their later amendments, set space and condition requirements for calves and pigs and put a cap on the number of hours animals could be transported.

In 1998 the EU introduced a directive on the protection of animals kept for farming purposes and a directive addressing the concerns about the conditions in which laying hens were kept.

Legislation has also been introduced on the protection of wild animals, with leg-hold traps banned and a zoos directive laying out standards and inspection requirements.

The Amsterdam treaty, which entered into force in May 1999, contained a protocol which welfare groups saw as an important milestone in the debate. The protocol recognised animals as "sentient beings" and said "the Community and the member states shall pay full regard to the welfare requirements of animals, while respecting the legislative or administrative provisions and customs of the member states relating in particular to religious rites, cultural traditions and regional heritage".

By recognising the welfare of animals the protocol was seen as going beyond the route of specific legislation.

Pressure on the EU to reform the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) brought a shift away from the emphasis on out-put levels and with it the hope that there would be less intensive farming in the future. Cross-compliance requirements of the reformed CAP also put more focus on the respect for EU directives on farming practices and animal welfare. A third element of the reform gives the most hope for changes, according to Eurogroup for Animal Welfare.

The rural development programmes would allow farmers, for example, to be paid once they committed themselves to good animal husbandry practices to off-set the costs involved. "That's the sort of higher-level policy commitment which is useful," says Dil Peeling, senior policy officer for farm animal welfare at Eurogroup. But he adds the scheme has unfortunately been offered to too few farmers by their governments and so the impact it will have may not be far-reaching.

Last March the Commission announced an action plan on animal welfare which has been welcomed as a major step forward. "First of all it gave animal welfare a political profile and, secondly, as well as looking at the legal sides it addresses the policy side with regard to the market, education, the CAP and other policies," says Peeling, whose group has been supportive of the plan.

The action plan seeks to ensure that stakeholders and the public are kept informed and involved in standards. The plan also aims to upgrade minimum standards in animal welfare and protection, seek alternatives to testing on animals and support international agreements on animal welfare.

There have already been some signs of opposition in the Council to the plan, with France and the Czech Republic at a recent meeting of agriculture ministers expressing concerns over increased cost implications for farmers. But there is hope among welfare groups that it will be enforced as a more focused and holistic approach to animal welfare is needed, they say. The group Compassion in World Farming says, for example, that while a directive is being introduced to tackle the conditions in which chickens reared for meat are kept, there are many cruel practices which will not be dealt with, such as the severe heart disease and lung failure resulting from breeding methods which aim at a fast growth in muscle but do not permit organs to develop as rapidly. Sonja Van Tichelen, director of Eurogroup, during a recent campaign said that certain farming practices meant things were far from ideal for animals in the EU. "Many never see daylight, can hardly turn around in their stalls, are ill or injured, are submitted to mutilations such as tail docking or castrated without anaesthetic. In order to have acceptable levels of animal welfare there is still a lot to do," she said.

Over the years there has been a gradual evolution in Europe towards better standards and policy on animal welfare. Hand-in-hand with changes in farming and attitudes to animal welfare, has come a response to the conditions in which animals are kept and the way they are treated.