Elisabeth Jeggle, rapporteur. – (DE) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am surprised by this proposal. The fellow Member was not here this morning during the debate in plenary.

I am surprised by this proposal. Mrs Evans, the shadow rapporteur for the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, was present during all the trialogue negotiations and supported the results of the trialogue meeting on 7 April. The Greens tabled amendments in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development which they are submitting again today. This is all legitimate and these changes are the ones under discussion. As the chair of the committee has already explained, they were rejected by all the groups with the exception of the Greens.

Ladies and gentlemen, I beg you to vote in favour of this compromise. I am not entirely satisfied with it and I am certain that no one here can be completely happy with all the points, simply because it is a compromise. Let us accept it nevertheless and reject all the calls that are now being made, otherwise we will have to live with the old directive from 1986 and with animal testing. Let us take a step towards improving animal welfare.

(Applause)