Farmers and animal welfare groups have challenged EU executives over the handling of continued non-compliance with new welfare laws.

On Tuesday, NFU Scotland announced that union leaders had challenged Commission officials over "their ongoing failures to properly police pig and poultry rules across Europe" at a European advisory meeting. New pieces of welfare legislation which came into force in January 2012 and 2013, intended to improve pig and poultry welfare across the EU, has been widely flouted; neither piece has so far been completely implemented across Europe.

image expired

In each case, less than half of the EU's 27 member states were compliant with new welfare laws when they took effect, despite having had over ten years to prepare.

During a meeting in Brussels, representatives of the Commission's Food and Veterinary Office (FVO) and Animal Welfare Unit were questioned on the poor progress on enforcing new regulations. Although unenriched battery cages were banned in January 2012 and use of sow stalls after the fourth week of pregnancy was outlawed in January this year, EU commitment to inspections to verify Member States' compliance has faltered, according to critics.

Although the UK had outlawed sow stalls years before the EU deadline came into effect, the country was found to be producing illegal eggs after January 2012, when the cage ban came into force. NFUS claimed on Tuesday that some countries are still housing hens and pigs illegally, and said the Commission has yet to inspect or impose penalties on these Member States.

Cyprus, Italy, Greece and Poland have still not fully complied with the Welfare of Laying Hens directive, whilst nine states remained in violation of the new pig welfare laws last month.

In February, the European Commission issued formal notices to Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Poland and Portugal over their violation of the partial sow stall ban. These countries have two months to respond, though no inspections are planned to take place this year and enforcing sanctions on states not compliant with pig welfare laws has proven more difficult than with the previous legislation on egg production.

The Commission puts this down to the nature of the EU meat processing industry, which was subject to intense scrutiny at the beginning of the year, when meat from other animals was detected in products labelled as beef.

NFUS blasts 'lamentable' performance

Speaking after attending last week’s meeting, NFU Scotland’s policy manager for pigs and poultry, Peter Loggie described the Commission's progress as "lamentable." He elaborated, "In the run-up to the laying cage ban at the start of 2012, the Commission's Animal Welfare staff promised inspections of Member States to check their compliance.   Instead, inspections of the Member States that missed the laying cage deadline were postponed because they would only have proved what these countries had freely admitted.  At the time, we accepted that this was a sensible approach. 

"However, 15 months after the laying cage ban was introduced, we still have four Member States still failing to comply with the laying cage ban.   Despite this, the Commission has still not taken action against any of them, nor against any of the others that were significantly late.   Furthermore, another four of those countries that failed to meet the original deadline - Belgium, Hungary, Spain, Portugal - have not had an FVO inspection to establish that they are now compliant and none are scheduled for 2013."  

Mr Loggie added that "It appears lessons from the Laying Hen legislation debacle have not been learnt," as the implementation of new pig welfare rules has also been hampered by non-compliance and a perceived lack of action by the Commission. He suggested that many non-compliant states' claims of moves towards meeting the new EU regulations "should set alarm bells ringing," and added that "An NFUS member recently visited a supposedly compliant pig farm in the Netherlands and discovered that sows were not being kept in groups as required by the legislation" in addition to evidence of other infractions.

The union called for more inspections to ensure EU rules are being uniformly applied, and for penalty proceedings against states which remain in violation of the new welfare regulations.  

In March, welfare group Compassion in World Farming investigated a number of farms in Spain and discovered pigs living in "horrendous" conditions in violation of the new pig welfare directive, as well as older laws. Commenting on the investigation, CEO Philip Lymbery said, "What use is a Directive if we don’t follow it throughout the EU? This footage shows that the Commission must do more to enforce the Pigs Directive and penalise those flouting it."