Euro bosses pledge after chaos over egg rules

EUROPEAN civil service bosses have been shaken by the bad result of their attempt to impose better conditions for laying hens and have declared their intention to do better in future – starting with the ban on keeping breeding sows in isolation, which is due to come into force next year.
By The Newsroom
Published 30th Jan 2012, 14:26 BST

Subject to ratification, the European Commission has adopted an animal welfare strategy for 2012-15 which includes at least one significant change of direction – a new emphasis on seeking “outcomes”, meaning measurement of animal health through symptoms like lameness, rather than detailed prescriptions on how the animals are kept.

But neither this nor the promise of better enforcement are likely to make much difference for some time and animal welfarists are disappointed by the new strategy, which follows two years of talk.

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It was announced through John Dalli, Commissioner for Health & Consumer Policy, who said: “The laying hens legislation has shown problems persist in animal welfare in several member states. Issues need to be tackled in a different way in order to achieve more sustainable results.”

Mr Dalli went on to promise more flexibility, more inter-government co-operation, more public education, and movement towards fuller labelling – including an obligation to record whether an animal has been fully stunned before slaughter, which it may not have been in kosher and halal abattoirs. He also promised he and his colleagues would be “enhancing tools to strengthen member state compliance with legal requirements”.

His officials said the new strategy reflected real concern that so many farmers had failed to meet the deadline for the new rules on eggs, 10 years after they were proposed.

An RSPCA spokesman said the promised switch to pursuit of “outcomes” made sense but they were disappointed at the lack of detail in the new policy.

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Peter Stevenson, policy adviser of Compassion In World Farming, said he was disappointed at the caution in the list of issues to be addressed – which includes fish farming but not dairy cows, long-distance transportation or cloning.

Keeping pregnant pigs in solitary confinement – popularly known as the stall and tether method – has been banned in the UK since 1999 and our pig farmers need competitors to be forced to follow suit on schedule on January 1, 2013.

Related topics:RSPCA