An UPDATE from Eurogroup for Animals.
________________
Eurogroup for Animals is extremely disappointed by the EU’s new Animal welfare strategy published today which outlines the future actions proposed to improve the treatment and welfare of animals until 2015. This strategy lacks any ambition and is a missed opportunity to highlight the role the EU can play in translating citizens concerns into action. Research clearly shows that European citizens care deeply about animals and expect governments to take responsibility and improve animal welfare. This strategy completely ignores this and the positive impact good animal welfare has on animal health, food safety and quality and sustainability.
The Strategy follows an evaluation of 20 years of animal welfare policy which concluded that current rules need to be better enforced and that some animal groups currently outside the scope of EU protection, such as dairy cows and pets, could benefit from harmonised EU laws. The strategy disregards these findings and does not recommend actions to address the concerns raised.
“The animal welfare movement relies on the EU to take its responsibility seriously and to regulate on those areas where animals suffer. It is astonishing that no future laws are planned and that high profile issues such as live animal transport, the cloning of animals for food and animal testing for cosmetics are not even mentioned in the strategy,” saidSonja Van Tichelen, Director of Eurogroup for Animals.
“We are extremely alarmed that despite there being no evidence that EU animal welfare polices have undermined the competiveness of EU producers the European Commission has listened to the industry and farming lobby and ignored the concerns of Europe’s citizens and the European Parliament as well as the animal welfare sector. The Commission is in effect bringing policy development to a standstill,” she concluded.
All that is left in the Strategy is a focus on enforcement activities and soft policy tools, such as training and communication. The Strategy supports a general framework law which should be established to introduce general principles, but it must also include the use of animal based indicators and the establishment of a European network of reference centres.
Eurogroup is also concerned about the lack of attention to policy coherence and to the use[i] and abuse of animals as a result of other policy decisions. The EU Treaty requires consistency between its policies and Article 13 demands that full consideration needs to be given to animals as sentient beings when drafting legislation in different areas. However, except for agriculture policy and trade, this strategy does not mention the need for coherence with other policies such as research, wildlife protection, consumer protection or sustainable development and this will undoubtedly cause animal suffering.
[i] The EU requires animal tests to ensure food safety, or product safety.
Notes
- Eurogroup for Animals represents animal welfare organisations of nearly all EU Member States. Since its launch in 1980, the organisation has succeeded in encouraging the EU to adopt higher legal standards for animal protection. Eurogroup represents public opinion through its membership organisations across the Union, and has both the scientific and technical expertise to provide authoritative advice on issues relating to animal welfare. For more information about Eurogroup, visit www.eurogroupforanimals.org.
- The Evaluation undertaken by GHK in association with ADAS UK(Food Policy Evaluation Consortium) for the European Commission to assess the effectiveness of over 20 years of animal welfare legislation which has been disregarded in the development of this Strategy can be downloaded here.
Pingback: Catching Up: Updates and News Links on American Horses and Sled Dogs in Canada. « Loki’s Gift
2015 !! What a disgrace. people who make these decisions are slowing down the spiritual evolving of the human being and the world/ Animals have every right to a decent peaceful life and until that happens life sucks !
Our message to carnists into a homo sapiens, frugivore species :
Stop eating meat and milk because many reasons, no one reason is positive for a way :carnism by homo sapiens frugivore species is wrong way :
- because by that way , by eating meat and milk you meat-milk-eaters kill other humans by Hunger, by every your dinner, lunch and by every eating meat and milk – you kill many humans by hunger,didn` you know ,it is true, can you live with this?
- because you kill yourselvez by desaeases like a consequences of wrong feeding and wrong cells metasbolism and by medicine each results are wrong based on experiments on the other animal species and conclussions are not valid for homo sapiens species and that gave wrong medicaments produced by pharmacology “industry“ – piosons for humans and these poisons act not against causes but against some symptomes of desaeses;
- because you kill our friends, animals , and you eat them , you kill their children and eat their milk , although you , homo sapiens sapiens have not enzymes for this way of feeding , you have no enzymes for using meat and milk( except in first year of your life and only for your own mother milk ) in your cells metabolism and that food is poison for homo sapiens species because homo sapiens frugivore species is.
When homo sapiens was real frugivore who have been walked on the Earth – his life was 120-140 years , was no wars, look at now , it`s now to short and wars are around us – everything for profiters advantage.
Too much killing on behalf of some humans wrong feeding just because some humans want collect much more profit – must be stopped . Their wrong food “industry“, arms “industry“ – must be stopped .
Frugivore species needs only fresh fruits – nothing else , all neccessarity-needly supstrates for homo sapiens right cells metabolism processes :are in fresh fruits .
Fresh fruits are right food for homo sapiens species .Everything else are to expansiv and too harm frauds made by profiters for their own advantage , and also some religions are their coworkers.