Farmers’ group Copa-Cogeca has called for existing animal welfare rules to be enforced across the EU.

Earlier this week, EU ministers held talks on the setting up of a new animal welfare platform in Europe. In January, German, Swedish, Danish and Dutch ministers presented a position paper to the Agriculture Council, suggesting that a platform should be set up to discuss animal welfare issues along the lines of forums that exist for Diet, Physical Activity and Health in the EU.

In its meeting on Monday, the Council broadly agreed on the idea of a platform to share best practice, and said such a platform should focus on the uniform application of current welfare laws; there has been criticism from farm groups about the Commission’s handling of non-compliance with recently passed welfare laws, including the ban on barren cages for laying hens which came into force in 2012.
 
Broadly agreeing with Council members, who said a platform should be created with “a view to ever decreasing trade barriers,” Copa Cogeca said existing welfare laws need to be ‘simplified’ and better enforced rather than creating new legislation.

The Council said an animal welfare platform should deal with ‘better regulation’, one of the priorities of the current Commission, which has come in for criticism as a means of deregulation and prioritising economic concerns over social and environmental ones, better animal welfare, and better awareness and knowledge of the issues around Europe.

Speaking after the Council talks, Copa-Cogeca Secretary-General Pekka Pesonen stressed, “The focus must be on ensuring proper implementation and harmonisation of existing EU rules rather than creating new legislation.”

Pesonen said Copa wants moves in animal welfare to focus on “Simplifying existing legislation, giving more flexibility to operators and reducing the high administrative costs they suffer.” He said farmers and others in the food sector are already putting voluntary measures into place, in areas such as transportation of live animals.

He claimed, “Our views were also backed in the Commission’s assessment of the Animal Welfare Strategy 2012-2015 and the European Parliaments’ resolution voted on at the end of last year. They stated that existing welfare legislation still needs to be correctly enforced throughout the EU, and in a harmonised way across all Member States.”