The weak files voted in the Animal Transport Committee

The ANIT committee’s report, backed by scientific evidence and investigations carried out in Bulgaria and Denmark, highlights clearly how the current system fails to adequately protect farmed animals during transport. Yet despite this strong analysis of the problem, the recommendations approved today mainly focus on improving enforcement of the current rules – something EU governments have long failed to give priority to – and on technical aspects of transport. Furthermore, today’s vote resulted in the exclusion of an amendment limiting journey time to maximum 8 hours, a vital reform that the EU Parliament should safeguard during the next plenary. Nonetheless, Compassion in World Farming EU welcomes the determination of some MEPs from the ANIT Committee, which ensured the presence in the text of specific recommendations safeguarding pregnant animals and unweaned calves.

Our recommendations

Compassion in World Farming EU urges the European Parliament to call for the following measures when it votes in plenary session at the beginning of next year:

Ban live animal exports to third countries by all transport modes and replace them with trade in meat, carcasses and genetic materials
Adopt measures to reduce transport of live animals within the EU:

- No transport of unweaned animals;

- No transport of pregnant animals if more than 40% of the expected gestation period has already passed;

- Sea transport to be carried out only under very strict rules, always with a veterinarian present on board and with feasible contingency plans for emergencies;

- Species-specific and category-specific (e.g. lactating/non lactating, at the end of their production cycle, etc.) temperature ranges within which transport can take place;

Introduction of absolute journey time limits of 4 hours for poultry and rabbits and 8 hours for all other species.