Making everyone happy

Ensuring the welfare of animals is a central principle of European policymaking. In 1997, EU governments attached to the Treaty of Amsterdam a protocol on the protection and welfare of animals.

The protocol has remained untouched through subsequent EU treaty revisions. It states that: "In formulating and implementing the Community’s agriculture, transport, internal market and research policies, the Community and the member states shall pay full regard to the welfare requirements of animals."

The health and happiness of pigs, cows, wild birds and chickens were thus - in principle - put on a similar footing as respect for human rights, and equality between men and women.

Dozens of EU laws are now in place to guarantee high welfare and nutrition (feed) standards for all animals and the quality of meat they provide.

But the work is not done: animal welfare remains an emotive subject for most Europeans, as reactions this summer to the slaughter of animals suffering from foot-and-mouth disease has shown.

Although activists are still ready to defend - through peaceful negotiations or violence - the welfare of animals, there are plenty of situations in which human welfare takes precedence over animal protection.

The testing of products on animals is a telling example. The cosmetics industry is currently protesting against a ban on animal tests for cosmetics, which is scheduled to begin in 2009. One of the many controversies raised over REACH, the recently agreed EU chemicals legislation, was the claim that it would almost certainly lead to an increase in the number of animals used to test chemical safety.

Animal rights extremists - particularly in the UK - have industry and even governments running scared of animal testing, but researchers say laboratory animals have saved millions of human lives through their use in medical tests.

European farmers say that animal welfare standards are making life hard for them: because they must obey strict (and expensive) standards not applied to meat producers outside the EU.

A review of the EU animal health strategy is expected later this month (19 September), with a review of animal testing rules and of the EU slaughter directive, along with a scientific opinion on the most humane way to kill seals, all expected next month. So it is clear that animal welfare and nutrition will remain high on the EU’s agenda.

More controversial will be any attempt to export those standards. The question of animal welfare and nutrition standards applied outside the EU has been featuring in the tortuous attempts to strike a global trade deal through the World Trade Organization.

Domestically, the EU is about to offer the clearest proof yet that it cares for all creatures - great and small. Following recommendations on the kindest way to keep and kill pigs, rabbits and chickens, the EU’s advisory body, the European Food Safety Authority, is now drafting an opinion on the welfare of molluscs.

Ensuring the welfare of animals is a central principle of European policymaking. In 1997, EU governments attached to the Treaty of Amsterdam a protocol on the protection and welfare of animals.