Judgment — ECLI:EU:C:2001:420
Date: 2001-07-12
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Agriculture and Fisheries;Veterinary legislation
Concepts: Health problems;Objectives and foundations of the Community;General;Principle of proportionality
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Netherlands

Summary of the Judgment 
1. Community law — Principles — Taking animal welfare into account — General 
principle — None — Obligation to take account of animal welfare requirements in 
the formulation and implementation of the Community's policy — Scope 
(Arts 2 EC and 33 EC; Protocol on protection and welfare of animals; Council 
Decision 78/923) 
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SUMMARY — CASE C-189/01 
2. Agriculture — Approximation of laws — Control of foot-and-mouth disease — 
Directive 85/511 — Ban on preventive vaccination — Infringement of the principle 
of proportionality — None 
(Council Directive 85/511, Art. 13) 
1. Ensuring the welfare of animals does 
not form part of the objectives of the 
Treaty, as defined in Article 2 EC, and 
no such requirement is mentioned in 
Article 33 EC, which sets out the 
objectives of the common agricultural 
policy. 
As to the Protocol on protection and 
welfare of animals, adopted at the 
same time as the Treaty of Amsterdam 
and annexed to the Treaty establishing 
the European Community, it is appar­
ent from its very wording that it does 
not lay down any well-defined general 
principle of Community law which is 
binding on the Community institu­
tions. Although it provides that 'full 
regard' must be had to the welfare 
requirements of animals in the formu­
lation and implementation of the Com­
munity's policy, it limits that obligation 
to four specific spheres of Community 
activity and provides that the legisla­
tive or administrative provisions and 
customs of the Member States must be 
respected as regards, in particular, 
religious rites, cultural traditions and 
regional heritage. 
Nor is it possible to infer any principle 
of general application from the 1976 
European Convention on the Protec­
tion of Animals kept for Farming 
Purposes, approved on behalf of the 
Community by Decision 78/923, which 
does not impose any clear, precisely 
defined and unqualified obligation, or 
from Declaration No 24 on the protec­
tion of animals, annexed to the Final 
Act of the Treaty on European Union, 
which has been superseded by the 
Amsterdam Protocol and the wording 
of which is even less binding than that 
of the Protocol. Similarly, Article 30 
EC refers to the 'life of... animals' only 
by way of exception to the prohibition 
of measures having equivalent effect, 
and there is nothing in the Court's case-
law to indicate that the Court has 
accepted any plea of justification based 
on that provision. 
Lastly, although there exist various 
provisions of secondary legislation 
referring to animal welfare, they like­
wise contain no indication that the 
need to ensure animal welfare is to be 
regarded as a general principle of 
Community law. 
The Court has however held on several 
occasions that the interests of the 
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JIPPES AND OTHERS 
Community include the health and 
protection of animals, ruling that 
efforts to attain the objectives of the 
common agricultural policy cannot 
disregard requirements of public inter­
est, such as the protection of the health 
and life of animals, which the Com­
munity institutions must take into 
account in exercising their powers. 
The Protocol on protection and welfare 
of animals seeks to reinforce the obli­
gation to take the health and protection 
of animals into consideration by pro­
viding that full regard must be had to 
the welfare requirements of animals in 
the formulation and implementation of 
the Community's policy, particularly in 
relation to the common agricultural 
policy, whilst at the same time recog­
nising that differences currently exist 
between the legislation of the respec­
tive Member States and the various 
sentiments harboured within those 
Member States. Fulfilment of that 
obligation can be verified, in particular, 
in the context of a review of the 
proportionality of the measure. 
(see paras 71, 73-79) 
2. Bearing in mind the wide discretionary 
power enjoyed by the Community 
legislature in matters concerning the 
common agricultural policy, the legal­
ity of a measure adopted in that sphere 
can be affected only if the measure is 
manifestly inappropriate in terms of 
the objective which the competent 
institution is seeking to pursue; more­
over, since the legality of a Community 
act cannot depend on retrospective 
assessment of its efficacy, where the 
Community legislature is obliged to 
assess the future effects of rules to be 
adopted and those effects cannot be 
accurately foreseen, its assessment is 
open to criticism only if it appears 
manifestly incorrect in the light of the 
information available to it at the time 
of the adoption of the rules in question. 
The ban on preventive vaccination 
imposed by Article 13 of Directive 
85/511 introducing Community mea­
sures for the control of foot-and-mouth 
disease does not exceed the limits of 
what is appropriate and necessary in 
order to attain the objective pursued by 
the Community rules. When instituting 
the policy of non-vaccination, the 
Council carried out a global assessment 
of the advantages and drawbacks of the 
system to be established and that 
policy, corresponding to the recom­
mendations of the International Office 
of Epizootics and the practice followed 
by numerous countries worldwide, was 
not on any view manifestly inappropri­
ate in the light of the objective of 
controlling foot-and-mouth disease. 
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SUMMARY — CASE C-189/01 
In addition, the ban on a general 
system of preventive vaccination does 
not preclude recourse, where the cir­
cumstances so require, to selective 
emergency vaccination in accordance 
with the requirements of a particular 
situation. 
(see paras 82, 84, 95-96, 100) 
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