After many years of political pressure from civil society and the Greens in the European Parliament, the EU Commission finally presented a proposal for a new EU animal transport law in December 2023. Unfortunately, animal welfare is still not the top priority.
Background
Every year, millions of animals are transported alive in the EU, either from one member state to another or from the EU to third countries. According to “Eurogroup for Animals” in 2019, there were 1.6 billion animals transported.1 Activists and NGOs regularly report violations of the EU animal transport regulation from 2005. Between 2007 and 2020, the Commission received about 200 reports of violations of Regulation (EC) No. 1/2005.2
Under pressure from the Greens, a committee of inquiry on animal transport was finally established in the European Parliament in 2021.3 It concluded that the current animal transport regulation is no longer up to date and lacks enforcement. The provisions in the regulation do not reflect the latest scientific findings, and systematic violations of the animal transport regulation are commonplace. A detailed analysis of the results can be found here.
Legislative Reform
In December 2023, the EU Commission finally presented a proposal for a new EU animal transport law. Although the proposal includes shorter maximum transport times, more space for animals during transport, and a transport ban for calves under five weeks old, it otherwise shows very little ambition. For example, there are still no maximum transport times for transport by ship, and the export to third countries is hardly restricted.
Unfortunately, since the publication of the proposal in December, the European People’s Party has refused to work on this legislative amendment, which means negotiations can only take place in the next term. Once the new Parliament is constituted, I will push as the shadow rapporteur for the Green Party to start negotiations in the European Parliament on this important issue. Whether and to what extent we will be able to prevent animal suffering during live animal transport in the future will also depend significantly on the outcome of this European election.
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- Eurogroup for Animals, Live Animal Transport: Time to Change the Rules. White Paper on the Revision of Council Regulation (EC) 1/2005 (2012) 8. ↩︎
- AWF|TSB, Evidence of serious and systematic infringements of Regulation (EC) No 1/2005 (2011-2020) (2020) 2. ↩︎
- Beschluss des Europäischen Parlaments vom 19. Juni 2020 über die Einsetzung eines Untersuchungsausschusses zur Prüfung von behaupteten Verstößen gegen das Unionsrecht und Missständen bei dessen Anwendung im Zusammenhang mit dem Schutz von Tieren beim Transport innerhalb und außerhalb der Union sowie über seine Zuständigkeiten, seine zahlenmäßige Zusammensetzung und seine Mandatszeit (2020/2690(RSO)) §2. ↩︎