The European Parliament’s Agriculture Committee voted on Friday with overwhelming majority to ban the caging of farmed animals in the EU.
The resolution, approved in the Committee by 39 votes in favour to four against, with three abstentions, will now have to be scrutinised by the Parliament as a whole, probably during the plenary session in beginning of June.
According the resolution, the use of cages in animal farming could be phased out by 2027, after an impact assessment and a properly funded transition. The Agriculture Committee also calls on the European Commission to speed up its review of the animal welfare legislation, asking for “the results by 2022” instead of the foreseen 2023 date.
The resolution is based on a European Citizens’ Initiative on ending the use of cages for farmed animals which received wide-spread support at a parliamentary hearing in April. The initiative has collected 1.4 million signatories across all EU member states and calls on the Commission to update an EU directive from 1998 on the protection of animals.
“This resolution is further confirmation that, like citizens all across Europe, Europe’s legislators also want to end the cruel practice of caging hundreds of millions of farmed animals every year,” commented Olga Kikou, Head of Compassion in World Farming EU and one of the citizens leading the ‘End the Cage Age’ European Citizens’ Initiative.
The Brussels Times
