Four years of citizen mobilization

It all started in 2018, when together with 170 organisations we launched the End the Cage Age European Citizens’ Initiative – a referendum-like petition allowing Europeans to propose legislation.

In the EU, each year over 300 million farm animals – including hens, quail, rabbits, sows and ducks – spend most, or all of their lives in cages that prevent them from very basic movements and natural behaviours. European citizens are aghast of this cruelty and want it to stop.

1.4 million people signed the European Citizens’ Initiative, within one year of the launch. Then its success culminated in 2021 when the EU Parliament voted overwhelmingly in support of a cages phase-out.

Shortly after, in the same month, the European Commission made a historic commitment to prohibit cages for hens, mother pigs, calves, rabbits, ducks, geese and other farmed animals, looking at a phase-out date by 2027.

Today we cheer for this unprecedented commitment, but we keep our eyes out for all potential threats to the realisation of this much needed change.