Legal basis for identification and registration of all dogs and cats
22.1.2025
Priority question for written answer P-000282/2025
to the Commission
Rule 144
Michal Wiezik (Renew), Dario Nardella (S&D), Tilly Metz (Verts/ALE)
Parliament has previously called for the identification and registration of all cats and dogs, most recently in its resolution of 12 February 2020 on protecting the EU’s internal market and consumer rights against the negative implications of the illegal trade in companion animals[1].
Considering that there is substantial trade in such animals, making it foreseeable that any individual animal may at any point be sold or transferred within Member States and across borders, this measure is also necessary to eliminate existing and future barriers to trade and attain harmonisation of the internal market.
Article 118(2)(c) of the Animal Health Law[2] already provides a legal basis for the mandatory identification and registration of all dogs and cats. The proposal for a regulation on the welfare of dogs and cats and their traceability[3] is, like the Animal Health Law, based on Articles 43 and 114 (but unlike the Animal Health Law, not on Article 168) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU).
Can the Commission clarify whether Article 114 TFEU provides a legal basis for the mandatory EU-wide identification and registration of all dogs and cats?
Submitted: 22.1.2025
- [1] OJ C 294, 23.7.2021, p. 40.
- [2] Regulation (EU) 2016/429 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 March 2016 on transmissible animal diseases and amending and repealing certain acts in the area of animal health (‘Animal Health Law’) (OJ L 84, 31.3.2016, p. 1, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2016/429/oj).
- [3] Commission proposal of 7 December 2023 for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the welfare of dogs and cats and their traceability (COM(2023)0769).