Frederic Vincent, spokesperson for EU health and consumer affairs commissioner John Dalli, has said UK is lucky not to be facing legal action over its continued use of battery cages. The commission has begun to take action against member states who failed to provide their laying hens with enriched cages in time, but has confirmed that the UK is not amongst them.

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The British egg Industry Council said it was “appalled” with the small number of non-compliant producers within the UK, who it said damaged the country’s record for excellent animal welfare standards; the council assured that all British Lion certified egg producers had met the deadline. Defra officials have since assured that the UK will be completely compliant by February.

Mr Vincent said that, had the UK informed the commission earlier that it was not fully compliant, it would have joined the other member states now facing legal action. He said, “Yesterday the European Commission launched infringement cases against the 13 member states which by the 31st December had told the Commission they would not comply on 1st January. The information from the UK came in mid-January so it is not currently facing an infringement case.”

He did, however, state that if Defra does not meet its new deadline, the UK could still face procedures in the next round of infringement cases. Me Vincent said, “The UK has promised to comply by the 1st February, so we will have to see what information comes out of the UK authorities; the next package of infringement cases is one month from now and we will see if the UK is in the list of non-compliant countries then.”

The Commission will now send letters to states which are still not compliant with the new welfare rules. If they fail to act on these, the non-compliant states could face fines. Mr Vincent said the EU is the world leader in animal welfare law, but admitted to concerns that the bloc would struggle to meet forthcoming laws on pig welfare, which will apply from January next year.

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