In recent decades, concern for animal welfare has been growing among citizens, businesses and policy-makers. The topic has been on the EU policy agenda for nearly 50 years, with the first EU law on the welfare of animals adopted in 1974. Since then, the EU has developed and expanded the scope of legislation in this area, achieving considerable improvements in the living conditions of farm animals and establishing some of the world’s highest animal welfare standards. In 2012, the EU adopted a strategy for the protection and welfare of animals covering the period until 2015.
When this strategy was about to expire, discussions arose about its continuation and possible further policy steps. Both the European Commission and the Member States preferred to focus on improving the enforcement of existing rules rather than creating new law.
However, developments in the following years – including a successful European citizens’ initiative – pushed specific animal welfare issues into the spotlight, and the need for a comprehensive animal welfare law became a recurring subject of debate. An evaluation of the 2012 2015 strategy, undertaken following recommendations of the European Court of Auditors, found that it failed to deliver on the objective of introducing an EU legislative framework on animal welfare.
Consequently, the Commission announced that in 2023 it would revise the EU animal welfare legislation and come up with a single, comprehensive law. This briefing builds on a previous EPRS briefing on the EU’s 2012 2015 strategy for the protection and welfare of animals and highlights developments that have occurred since that strategy expired.
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O artigo foi publicado originalmente em Think Tank - Parlamento Europeu.
