Danish Presidency’s conference on Animal Welfare
On 1st December, the Danish Presidency and the European Commission organised a hight level international conference on Welfare of Farm Animals in the EU of 2050 – A Pathway to the Future.
The conference was opened by Jacob Jensen, Danish Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, and Oliver Varhelyi, Commissioner for Health and Animal Welfare. It brought together more than 200 people representing Member States, scientific experts and representatives of professional livestock organisations and animal welfare organisations.
Hans-Peter Schons, our Vice-President delegated for Animal Welfare, Stéphane Jeanne, 1st Vice President of FESASS, and Alain C. Cantaloube represented our Federation. This was indeed an important topic, with significant implications for European livestock farming and animal health.
Animal welfare and animal health are closely linked. Animals cannot be considered to be welfare when they are sick, and their health is compromised when they are stressed. The fragmented application of European law among Member States is therefore a cause for concern, as are distortions with third countries on these issues.
Hans-Peter SCHONS recalled that resilience of the livestock sector includes in particular the ability to withstand and recover from shocks (like animal disease outbreaks) and at the same time the ability to adjust to new conditions and opportunities that arise from these disruptions. However, many recent decisions to amend the animal welfare legislation do not seem to fit into that approach. Despite the diversity of farms (and consumers), EU legislation appears to be based on fairly narrowly defined requirements. While it is useful to have minimum requirements, we must not be overly restrictive and we need as many opportunities as possible to sell and export our products and to import necessary operating resources. Export bans and import restrictions will make resilience more difficult.
You can watch a replay of this conference on this website with interpretation in several European Union languages.