In early April, we achieved a breakthrough in our efforts to stop the cruel practise involving calves’ transportation in the EU. Following a meeting between the Commission and the countries concerned, Austria and Italy, the Commission took action.
My parliamentary question to Lithuanian Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis concerning ‘assembly-point hopping’ was probably one factor in the Commission’s decision to halt Vorarlberg’s consignments to Bozen. However, the onus is on the other federal states — what applies in Vorarlberg must also apply in Salzburg and Tyrol! It is unacceptable that animals’ consignments continue to be despatched from Bergheim, with the vehicles then making a short stop in Bozen before, in a glaring breach of European law, going on to southern Spain.
Local slaughtering capacity, meat-labelling programmes, sperm sexing, promotion of dual-use breeds, stress-free slaughtering and mother-bonded calf rearing: our list of measures to reduce the animal suffering caused by the transport of calves is long. The time for further action has come!
