Verbatim report of proceedings

Tuesday, 14 March 2017 - Strasbourg

Minimum standards for the protection of farm rabbits (A8-0011/2017 - Stefan Eck)

  Paul Brannen (S&D). – Mr President, I am pleased to say that all of the British Labour MEPs voted today in favour of minimum standards for farmed rabbits across the European Union. I myself received over 20 000 emails calling for support for minimum legislation in relation to farmed rabbits. I also received a large number of pictures of rabbits, drawn by children from across the European Union, in calls for support for action in this area. I would like to congratulate Compassion in World Farming on a very successful campaign.

There are over 300 million farmed rabbits in the European Union, which means there are more farmed rabbits than there are men in the European Union, and those farmed rabbits are living in cages no bigger than two sheets of A4 paper. It simply is not acceptable. We no longer have battery hens: the time has come to end farmed rabbits.