What has happened to the European Commission's commitment to animal welfare?
The European Commission promised to deliver a full revision to the animal welfare legislation by October 2023, which would have affected the lives of billions of sentient beings across the EU.
While this goal was not met, President Ursula von der Leyen renewed her promise to deliver the revision by 2026 in a recent Strategic Dialogue. This dialogue proved to be historic for animal welfare, as a new Commissioner for Health and Animal Welfare was also announced. This new role will ensure animals have more representation on the political stage, and is a huge step forward for securing their welfare in Europe.
The European Commission must not fail to deliver the proposals!
Policy-makers have a new deadline… and they must not miss it. Countless animals are suffering on factory farms across the EU, due to outdated and weak laws that do very little to protect them and address their needs.
This video, produced in March 2023, was accompanied by an expose report. Download it in English here.
We need to see action. The European Commission must deliver strong and welfare-focused proposals, in-line with the latest science, by its new deadline.
What has the No Animal Left Behind project achieved so far?
In 2024, we contributed to several important discussions leading up to the Strategic Dialogue to make sure animal welfare would be represented in future work related to food and farming. Out of the six priorities we suggested, nearly all of them were adopted.
Across the year, we also focused on securing a stronger proposal for the EU’s Transport Regulation. The initial proposal to update the laws related to live animal transport was leaked in December 2023, but does not sufficiently respond to the welfare issues animals face in the industry - a sentiment echoed by European citizens.
Back in October 2023, we organised a stunt in the centre of Brussels to call on the Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to deliver the animal welfare proposals. Several policymakers and key figures in the animal welfare movement attended, and over 50,000 concerned citizens reached out to the European Commission.
In 2021, around 200,000 supporters across the EU demanded better animal welfare legislation, setting positive change in motion by urging policy-makers to pay attention.
In the same year, we also published a report demonstrating how current EU laws are failing animals, as well as a white paper outlining what we want to see in the new legislation.
Our Key Demands
The animal welfare legislation must do more than protect animals from neglect, cruelty, and suffering. It should actively promote a positive state of health and wellbeing for each and every sentient being. Here are some of the welfare concerns we want the European Commission to prioritise while revising its laws.
1 Good Health
Every animal should be healthy, fit and whole.
No animal should be deliberately mutilated, its tail or beak chopped short, its body so overstretched it cannot stand straight. But billions live in preventable pain every day. Animals deserve to feel strong and full of life, to have the ability and desire to run and swim and peck and play. Its not enough just to exist. They should thrive.
2 A Happy Life
Every animal should have the space to live freely and comfortably.
No animal should be physically restricted, without natural light or fresh air, too hot or too cold, or living in filth. They deserve to move freely and safely, and to rest in comfort. When animals have control over how and where they spend their time – building nests, sunbathing, exploring, snoozing, and more – their wellbeing increases. Feeling safe from harm and interested in life should be the least we offer them.
3 No Animal Live Transport
No animal should be subjected to being transported.
Being herded into cramped trucks and being trapped there without rest, food, and water is an unnatural and highly stressful experience for farm animals. The EU must ban all long distance journeys for farm animals, including live exports, and introduce bespoke rules for each transported species to limit their suffering on all other unavoidable journeys.
4 Natural Behaviours
Every animal should be able to express themselves.
No animal should be prevented from showing its natural behaviours. Boredom and stress spill into frustration and aggression, and when there’s no escape, every day is miserable. The EU’s animal welfare laws should make plenty of space for animals to live full and unrestricted lives, following the model of the Five Domains.
5 Good Nutrition
Every animal should enjoy nutritious food and clean water.
No animal should be kept hungry, malnourished or thirsty. They need nutritious food and easy access to fresh and clean water. Most would naturally spend many hours rooting, grazing, browsing, foraging and feeding. Encouraging them to express these behaviours through thoughtful husbandry is vital to their wellbeing.
6 Positive mental experiences
Every animal deserves to enjoy life.
No animal is without feelings or needs. But in industrial systems, billions are treated as “units of production” as though they are machines. They should be cared for as the sentient, smart, pleasure-seeking creatures they truly are, and given every chance to have excellent lives.
7 Expanding the circle of compassion to include all species
Every animal deserves protection and care.
The more we discover about animals and their complex, intriguing lives, the more shocked we should be at how we have treated them in the past. Our laws need to do more than protect the welfare of all kept animals. They should promote health, wellbeing and compassion. Let’s leave none behind.
Who else is with us?
“Each year, millions of animals are transported alive within the EU and to third countries. Journeys can last several days or even weeks and countless investigations have repeatedly uncovered serious breaches of the Council Regulation (EC) No 1/2005. This cannot go on.”
“Our animal welfare laws fail billions of farmed animals living in preventable pain every day. It is high time for the European Commission to commit to an ambitious review of the legislation.”
“No animal deserves to be confined and physically restricted. 1.4 million citizens across Europe have called on the EU to put an end on the use of cages in animal farming. It is time for the European Commission to take action.”
“Citizens’ calls to act on animal welfare have become louder and louder in this crucial time, the European Commission cannot ignore these calls any longer and needs to commit to an ambitious full-scale review of the animal welfare laws.”
“Countless investigations have shown over and over the serious failures and poor enforcement of the current legislation. The European Commission needs to make sure that the revised animal welfare laws do more than protect every animal from neglect and cruelty: they should also actively promote a positive state of health and wellbeing.”
“2021 offers a very important window of opportunity for animal welfare in the EU. The European Commission cannot miss this chance to offer better protection to the billions farmed animals suffering across Europe every day.”
"We live in a world where sensitive beings are cramped in small cages, without possibility to move, without access to natural light or fresh air and their offspring is ripped apart from them as soon as the children are born. We wouldn't do it to another human but we continue to treat non-human animals in that way. The horror of factory farming cannot last. We need a law which protects animal rights. Animals deserve no less."
