Viable rules on the welfare of animals at the time of slaughter

Every year in the European Union, 360 million pigs, cattle, sheep and goats are killed, as are over 4 billion poultry birds and 25 million animals reared for fur.  In a consultation report drafted by Janusz Wojciechowski (UEN, PL), the European Parliament approved a European Commission proposal seeking to replace the 1993 directive on the protection of animals at the time of slaughter by a new regulation to improve animal welfare while allowing more uniform application of EU rules in Member States.  Amendments adopted are chiefly intended to clarify the rules so they can be more easily applied and protect animals effectively, to prevent red tape and to ensure that imports comply with EU standards.

 

 

MEPs approve the principle that animals must be slaughtered using only methods that ensure death instantly or after stunning, except in the case of religious ritual, for which they called for the current blanket exemption to be preserved rather than allowing for exemptions to be decided at national level. 

 

 

To prevent unnecessary suffering, MEPs voted in favour of restraining animals only if the person responsible for stunning or killing it is ready to perform his task, and for bleeding to start as soon as possible after stunning to ensure the animal does not regain consciousness before death.

 

In addition, MEPs approved the introduction of indicators to detect signs of consciousness or sensibility in animals during killing operations, so as to check the reliability of stunning procedures.

 

 

While MEPs were in favour of the appointment of an animal welfare officer for each slaughterhouse, they stressed that responsibility for ensuring compliance with the rules must lie with the operator or company, not with an individual employee who cannot oversee enforcement of the rules. But to ensure small slaughterhouses remain viable, they argued that, for establishments slaughtering fewer than 1000 livestock units of mammals or 150,000 units of poultry per year, the procedure for obtaining a certificate of competence should be simplified.  

 

The House also opposed the introduction of national reference centres in the Member States, the latter having already set up competent authorities.

 

 

The European Union's animal welfare rules are among the strictest in the world and this sometimes leads to higher production costs and distortions of competition with countries which are less careful in this area. MEPs therefore believe the Commission should ensure that meat and other animal products imported from non-EU countries meet European standards. They call for inspections to be carried out in abattoirs authorised to export to the European Union and for attestations that EU standards have been met to be supplied in addition to the health certificates already required for imports.

 

In addition, Parliament highlights the need to provide adequate EU funding for European producers in order to compensate for the competitive disadvantage they would suffer.

 

Lastly, MEPs call on the Commission to present, by 1 January 2013, draft legislation on the use of mobile abattoirs