The EU and animal welfare

Sir, – The new European Commission is to include a commissioner dedicated to animal welfare for the first time in its history. Hungary’s Olivér Várhelyi has been nominated and is awaiting approval by the European Parliament. The push from animal welfare NGOs for a dedicated animal welfare commissioner reflects the collective voice of hundreds of thousands of EU citizens and hundreds of MEPs over the past several years.

But how successful will the new commissioner be in facing down the powerful animal agriculture lobby?

For instance, will we soon see the end of cages for laying hens, or, more ambitiously, a complete reform of the intensive systems of animal production in which large numbers of pigs, chickens, ducks, geese and rabbits are raised in single sheds? Will we see a reform of the dairy industry, enabling and perhaps even obliging dairy farmers to leave calves with their mothers for a period of three or four months, or will the current practice of removing the calf from the mother within 24 hours of birth continue, due to pressure from the industry? Will we finally see the long overdue cessation of the live export of animals to countries outside the EU?

The intensive system of animal production is incompatible with high animal welfare; indeed, current intensive production is guaranteed to deliver the worst possible welfare outcomes for the animals. The new European commissioner for animal welfare will need nerves of steel and no end of courage if he is to push through essential welfare reforms against what will be a massive and misleading campaign against his proposed reforms, whatever they may be. – Yours, etc,