Working in Europe
Britain's membership of the European Union has created real opportunities to improve animal welfare across the 27 member states. Many animal welfare issues are proposed, debated and legislated on, such as live animal transport and food labelling which can only effectively be tackled at the European level.
The RSPCA works closely with Eurogroup for Animals in Brussels to ensure animal welfare has a strong voice at the heart of the EU decision-making process. Eurogroup have recently published an excellent document outlining a number of key concerns regarding animal welfare across the EU. You can download 2010 Areas of Concern: Analysis of Animal Welfare Issues in the European Union here. (Please note that this PDF document is over 1MB.)
The pages in this section detail the issues that we are working on in the EU and lobbying on in England and Wales.
Lisbon Treaty
There has been little change to the rules on animal welfare but some of the measures to increase the power of the European Parliament and changes to the voting procedure in the Council of Ministers will have a big impact on how the RSPCA lobbies in the EU.
Article 13 of the Treaty now reads that the EU and member states will need to, ‘pay full regard to the requirements of animal welfare’. This means that the European Commission needs to carry out ‘animal welfare impact assessments’ before adopting new policies.
The majority of EU policy making will now have to carried out by the co-decision procedure, meaning that the parliament has a much bigger say on issues, including the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). This makes lobbying MEPs even more important than it used to be.
First Action Plan and second EU strategy for the protection and welfare of animals
The first EU action plan (2006-2010) on animal welfare can be found here. The plan was evaluated in 2009 and the conclusions were published in December 2010 forming the basis of the second plan, known as the EU Strategy on the protection and welfare of animals 2011-2015. This is expected to be adopted in December 2011. Further information on the strategy can be found here. The RSPCA has been in discussions with Defra regarding our views on the strategy.
One of the potential issues to be included in the strategy is the welfare of cats and dogs. At the end of 2010 the European Council agreed to support conclusions on the welfare of cats and dogs proposed by the Belgian presidency in the first move towards improving the lives of companion animals in the European Union.
The RSPCA has been working alongside Eurogroup for Animals and welcomes the decision, as action is needed to address the major differences in animal standards across member states. The strategy, to be developed later this year, will seek to harmonise rules across the EU for the breeding, trade, traceability and the identification of per animals.
The RSPCA has written to the Defra Secretary of State, Caroline Spelman MP, to ask her to support these proposals and will continue to liaise with the English and Welsh governments on the development of the strategy.
EU Animal Health Strategy
Another useful resource is the EU’s Animal Health Strategy (2007-2013) ‘prevention is better than cure’. More information can be found about the Strategy on DG SANCO's website.
