Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on the Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on a Community Action Plan on the Protection and Welfare of Animals 2006-2010 COM(2006) 13 final
Date: 2006-10-26
Institutions: European Economic and Social Committee
Subjects: EU programme, action programme, animal welfare, cooperation policy, international trade, protection of animals, third country

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Official Journal of the European Union

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Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on the Communication from the
Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on a Community Action Plan on the
Protection and Welfare of Animals 2006-2010

COM(2006) 13 final

(2006/C 324/08)

On 5 April 2006, the European Commission decided to consult the European Economic and Social
Committee, under Article 262 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, on the abovementioned
proposal.

The Section for Agriculture, Rural Development and the Environment, which was responsible for preparing
the Committee's work on the subject, adopted its opinion on 8 September 2006. The rapporteur was Mr
Nielsen.

Due to the renewal of the Committee's term of office, the Plenary Assembly decided to vote on this opinion
at its October plenary session and appointed Mr Nielsen as rapporteur-general under Rule 20 of the Rules
of Procedure.

At its 430th plenary session, held on 26 October 2006, the European Economic and Social Committee
adopted the following opinion by 92 votes in favour with one abstention.

1. Conclusions and recommendations

Interest in the protection and welfare of animals is on
1.1
the increase in many parts of the EU and in some non-EU coun-
tries as well.
It is appropriate, therefore, to give support to
market forces and to make any necessary adjustments to EU
minimum requirements. This need not involve more restrictive
requirements, but improved and more relevant rules based on
scientific and socio-economic studies. It is also important to
establish a joint quality labelling scheme for products that meet
specific animal-welfare requirements. Substantial improvements
are also needed for animals used in research and testing and in
statutory safety tests.

In broad terms,

1.2
the Commission action plan reflects
these requirements and may form the basis for further priority-
setting in this field. The Committee backs the proposed strategy
as a starting point, but will,
in due course, also be looking
closely at the Commission's specific proposals with an eye to
ensuring that a proper balance is struck between animal welfare
on the one hand and social and economic factors on the other.
It is, however, vital that imports from non-member countries
with lower standards do not drive out EU products. If that were
livestock farming would relocate to places with
to happen,
lower standards, thereby forcing EU players to cease production.
In that
the
Commission's action plan goes far enough in securing sustain-
able solutions.

the Committee is not convinced that

respect,

the

The EESC very much regrets

impossibility of
1.3
discussing this issue in the current negotiating round of the
World Trade Organisation (WTO). Nonetheless, in trade in agri-
cultural products, it is essential that, in the longer term, animal
welfare be recognised as a non-trade concern. Otherwise, the
EU could be compelled to take unilateral action to secure the
In the
requisite understanding of

the need for law change.

shorter term, the Commission and civil society must put pres-
sure on the EU retail sector and food industry to impose equiva-
lent requirements on imports from outside the Union through
certification schemes and similar safeguards.

1.4
Research activities need to be coordinated and built upon
so that resources can, as far as possible, be pooled and turned
to good account. The provisions also need to be reviewed regu-
larly, not least so that they continue to reflect technological
developments and new knowledge.

1.5
The EESC welcomes the proposal to set up a centre or
laboratory for the protection and welfare of animals. However, a
more imaginative approach should also be considered, namely a
global centre to help deal with animal-welfare issues at an inter-
national level, thereby supporting the work of the OIE (1) and
the Council of Europe and providing assistance in EU bilateral
agreements.

1.6 Moreover, the Commission, working together with the
OIE and the Council of Europe, should take the initiative for an
international conference to help build up a more sustainable
network for researchers from outside the EU and foster a greater
level of informal international cooperation in this field.

1.7 With regard to the use of animals in laboratories and for
testing, the Committee thinks that the strategy
toxicological
should be broadened to include a ‘need’ provision whereby
animals may only be used in this way if there is some kind of
proven social need for the product in question.

2. The action plan: a summary

The main aim of the action plan is to secure animal
2.1
welfare in the EU and at the international
level, to identify
future needs and to provide for the more effective coordination

(1) The French acronym by which the World Organisation for Animal

Health is known.

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of existing resources. Under the plan, the following five main
areas of action for 2006-2010 are to be monitored and evalu-
ated, not least with a view to follow-up beyond 2010:

— to adjust existing minimum standards to reflect new scien-

tific evidence and socio-economic assessments;

non-member countries where standards are lower. The overall
strategic plan boosts transparency in this area and improves the
scope for constructive cooperation on the part of all stake-
holders. This applies,
to agricultural producers
who, with an eye to their long-term investment, motivation and
management, should be involved in shaping the future strategy.

in particular,

— to promote future research;

— to introduce standardised indicators;

— to ensure the availability of information on current stan-

dards; and

— to implement further international initiatives to raise aware-

ness and create a greater consensus on animal welfare.

2.2
The plan also sets out 28 initiatives that the Commission
is intending to implement between now and 2010. These
include 21 actions already underway, already announced or
specifically provided for under Community legislation.

2.3
The Commission has also published working documents
setting out the strategic basis of the initiatives and the core
element underpinning the measures proposed in the action
plan. The Commission also considers compliance with the 3Rs
declaration on animal testing adopted in 2005 (2) to be a key
component of the action plan.

2.4
The Commission feels that its animal-welfare role could
be made easier through more effective coordination between the
various departments concerned. This would help to ensure a
more consistent and coordinated approach across Commission
policy areas, just as measures with an animal welfare impact are
to be vetted both to demonstrate compliance with the EC Treaty
Protocol on protection and welfare of animals and to identify
their socio-economic impact.

3. General comments

As the representative of civil society — and given the
3.1
diversity of its membership — the EESC clearly bears a share of
responsibility for framing the relevant provisions of animal
welfare as part of the European social model (3). It is important
to press ahead with the current approach and to secure, within
the EU, sound and acceptable levels of animal protection,
without
thereby generating any unnecessary distortions of
competition or undermining protection levels by imports from

testing

(2) Declaration on animal

in Brussels on 7
November 2005, on implementing the ‘3Rs’ action programme, i.
e. reduction (i.e. a cut in the number of laboratory animals); refinement (i.
e. the further development of animal-testing models involving less
strain on laboratory animals) and replacement (i.e. the development of
alternatives to animal testing).

adopted

(3) It is thus to be regretted that the EESC was not consulted on this issue

until three months after the action plan was published.

in part,

3.2
Broadly speaking, therefore, the EU farming sector is in
favour of reasonable and well-balanced animal welfare provi-
sions, but would also draw attention to the concomitant risks of
distorted competition arising,
that
Member States are able to introduce additional national require-
ments, but also a corollary of the practice of importing from
non-member countries that have lower standards, or none at all.
The risk of competition being distorted by additional national
rules is, moreover, made all the greater by the ‘cross-compliance’
requirement under the Common Agricultural Policy. The result
is legal uncertainty in the Member States — hence the need for
clarification of the legal position in this regard.

from the fact

3.3 With regard to third-country imports, common EU rules
applying across an internal market of thirty countries with a
combined population of 500 million (4) will also have a knock-
on effect both in non-EU countries themselves and in relation
to their imports into the EU. For instance, the World Bank's
International Finance Corporation recently pointed to the
growing global interest in animal welfare and the need to adapt
to developments in this area in both primary production and
industrial processing (5).

In the short term, however,

3.4
it should also be brought
home to retail chains and processing industries within the EU
that, when importing agricultural goods and processed animal
products from non-EU countries, it is in their own interests —
and is also conducive to their public image — to ensure compli-
ance with an appropriate code of conduct in the country of
production,
that are
consistent with EU rules in this area. This may, for instance,
involve mandatory cooperation with suppliers (6). The Commis-
sion should, in any event, take the initiative in this regard. Civil
society too should draw attention to the issue via the media. It
must be made clear to retail chains and the food industry in the
EU that, in future, more attention will be paid to the production

including animal-welfare requirements

(4) Including Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, which are part of the EU
internal market (European Economic Area) and also Romania and
Bulgaria.

(5) Creating Business Opportunity through Improved Animal Welfare, Interna-
tional Finance Corporation (IFC), World Bank Group, April 2006.
The IFC covers 178 member countries and it is calling specifically
for investments in developing countries so as promote exports to
developed countries.
A number of countries also have an animal welfare code of conduct
rather than any specific legislation. This is the case, for instance, in Swit-
zerland, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina and Brazil.

(6) Mandatory cooperation may include, for instance, joint action by the
producer (from outside the EU) and the EU importer to promote
research and development, and certification of compliance with
production and processing standards in the same way as increasingly
happens within the EU.

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conditions of imported agricultural goods and processed animal
products from non-EU countries. Consumer bodies and farmers'
organisations should jointly undertake to pursue activities along
these lines at national
level. However, in trade in agricultural
products, it is also absolutely vital in the longer term to secure
recognition of animal welfare as a non-trade concern (cf.
below).

3.5
As for the risk of EU-internal distortions of competition,
it would be irrational — and unacceptable to the public in a
number of Member States — to harmonise the provisions,
thereby ruling out the possibility of more far-reaching standards
being introduced at national level. If, however, at EU level, the
minimum requirements concerned were, in future, to a greater
extent based on more objective criteria underpinned by research
and scientific studies, then understanding and acceptance of
them would be bound to increase, thereby giving less cause for
the introduction of more far-reaching national rules. To ensure,
therefore, that a proper regulatory environment is put in place
in this area, it is essential that any new initiatives be backed up
by scientific data and appropriate socio-economic assessments.
Steps should also be taken to ensure that, with a view to putting
in place the suggested indicators,
the research findings are
assessed and applied in a competent way. At the same time,
Member States should have some scope for flexibility to reflect,
for instance, environmental and climactic conditions.

The Commission feels that the adjustment, management,
3.6
and dissemination of these standards as well as the preparation
of
relevant socio-economic studies and impact assessments
could be facilitated by the creation of a European centre or
laboratory for the protection and welfare of animals. The EESC
would ask that consideration be given to a more imaginative
approach, namely a global centre to help deal with animal-
welfare issues at international level, and thus support the work
of the OIE and the Council of Europe and provide assistance in
any bilateral agreements that might be made.

laboratory animals in industry,

The EESC agrees on the need to foster partnership
3.7
between the Commission and industry in order to promote
alternatives to the use of
in
conjunction, for instance, with the setting-up of the centre and
the submission of a strategy on the application of the so-called
‘3Rs’ principle which can provide guidance for the use of
laboratory animals in the EU (7). The Commission initiative may
also give a fillip to the activities currently underway elsewhere
to promote alternative methods (8). The EESC, however, feels
that the strategy should be broadened to include a ‘need’ provi-
sion, permitting animal testing only in cases where there is a
proven social need for the product for which the chemical or
substance concerned is to be used.

(7) Some 90 % of laboratory animals are used for research and develop-
ment, and around 10 % for statutory toxicological safety tests on new
drugs and chemical substances. The increasing attention being paid to
animal welfare is reflected in the EU cosmetics directive which enjoins
industry to find alternatives to animal testing.

(8) Including in particular the European Centre for the Validation of Alter-
native Methods (ECVAM) and the European Consensus Platform for
Alternatives to Animal Experimentation (ECOPA).

Distortions of competition in the case of third-country imports

3.8
the EU
The intense competition and opening-up of
market involves a substantial risk that products from countries
outside the Union with lower standards or no standards at all
will gradually drive out EU production and sales,
including
those on non-EU markets The very tight squeeze on farm
profits, coupled with the additional costs of animal welfare, may
thus be a vital factor in farmers' capacity to remain in business.
Moreover, in most cases, it will be too risky for farmers to base
their production around the relatively small group of consumers
who are willing to pay more (9).

3.9
Imports from non-member countries with lower animal-
welfare requirements thus raise highly complex issues and the
Committee is not convinced that the Commission's action plan
goes far enough in securing adequate and sustainable solutions.
The EESC very much regrets the impossibility of discussing this
issue in the current WTO negotiating round, but, in terms of
trade in agricultural products, the EU must nonetheless continue
to press to have animal welfare recognised as a non-trade
concern.

If, however,

3.10
it proves impossible to achieve adequate
sustainable solutions in this way or to secure the necessary
understanding of the issue within the auspices of the WTO, the
EU must, even without prior international agreement, require
that imports from non-member countries comply with equiva-
lent rules. A degree of provocation may thus be needed to draw
the requisite attention to the issue and promote understanding
of the need for a change in the law.

4. Specific comments

4.1
Compliance with EU rules in this area means that the EU
institutions and Member States must meet the deadlines they
themselves have set for the submission, adoption and imple-
mentation of the specific provisions. This has not always been
the case in the past — hence also the failure, relative to earlier
decisions, to meet the deadline for a number of initiatives set
out in the action plan.

The

address

action plan does not

4.2
the difficulties
surrounding long-distance animal transport, which is a corollary
of the EU single market and the abolition of veterinary borders.
In 2004, the Council adopted an amendment to the rules on
the protection of animals during transport, which is due to
enter
and the Commission has
announced its intention of submitting a proposal after 2010. In

in 2007 (10)

into force

(9) Although the public are more often than not positively disposed
towards higher consumer prices to pay for welfare measures, consu-
mers often behave differently in practice.

(10) Council Regulation (EC) No 1/2005 of 22 December 2004 on the
protection of animals during transport and related operations and
amending Directives 64/432/EEC and 93/119/EC and Regulation (EC)
No 1255/97.

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this and in other areas, it is important that the rules are based
on scientific findings and that the key provisions on transport
time and space requirements during transport are subject to
more effective monitoring.

All experience shows that management is the key factor in
4.3
future
animal welfare. This element should be the focus of
animal-protection and animal-welfare provisions,
through,
among other things, requirements for training and guidance,
combined with ongoing animal-welfare checks within the
should also mean less
different production systems. That
detailed rules for production systems and legislation that is
easier to handle.

4.4
Thanks to structural developments in animal production,
with the establishment of bigger and ever more specialised
production units and the application of new technology, it is
now possible to monitor animal welfare more closely than ever
before through a range of indicators. The increasingly detailed
knowledge about objective, quantifiable animal-welfare indica-
tors can also be factored into the design of new production
buildings. The proposed centre could devise benchmarks,
backed by scientific fact, to foster progress in this area. When
laying down any fresh requirements, however, consideration
should be given to the long payback period on agricultural
investments.

4.5
The EESC backs the establishment of a specific Informa-
tion Platform for Animal Welfare to facilitate dialogue and the
exchange of expertise/experience on this issue between stake-
holders such as consumers, producers, retailers, industry etc. (11).
However, there are substantial limits as to what can be done
here and, in practice, it is impossible for consumers in the EU to
get any clear picture of the differences between various produc-
and drawbacks.
tion systems
Consumer organisations, therefore, want to see the EU and the
Member States take responsibility in this area and lay down
minimum standards.

in-built benefits

and their

The EESC also backs

4.6
the establishment of a joint
than
marketing system to foster
minimum welfare standards. It is vital that this system be based
on joint, objective criteria and documented knowledge. The EU
may well make such a labelling scheme available to producers
and distributors, but what really counts is that the development

the application of higher

Brussels, 26 October 2006.

of products complying with higher standards should, as far as
possible, be market-driven. To be successful, however, any label-
ling scheme must be backed up by checks and accompanied by
a
information
campaign.

credibility-enhancing

conducted,

carefully

4.7
The introduction of a labelling scheme indicating the
country of origin of goods imported from outside the EU is
dealt with in general terms in a separate document. Such a
scheme is particularly relevant for animal products and indust-
such a
rially processed goods derived from them. Under
scheme, it should be possible to identify goods not produced in
line with EU animal welfare standards.

4.8
According to the action plan, the quest for high stan-
dards is a hallmark of environmentally sound production. The
Commission feels that such production should also be taken as
a benchmark for the highest animal-welfare standards too (12).
Experience shows that environmentally sound production does,
in some areas, have the potential to improve animal welfare, but
that unfit conditions also remain and that further knowledge is
needed.

4.9
At all events, it is important to make the best possible
use of resources within the EU. This applies not only to research
and scientific studies where national resources should, as far as
possible, be coordinated so as to permit pooling and optimum
utilisation. Resources could therefore be used more effectively if,
among other things, they were coordinated by a joint advisory
committee composed of representatives with expertise in this
area. Moreover, the Commission, working together with the OIE
and the Council of Europe, should take the initiative for an
international conference to help build up a more sustainable
network of researchers both inside and outside the EU and to
foster greater informal international cooperation in this field.

4.10
EU veterinary and disease-control measures incorporate
a range of welfare aspects, even although there is not always
any incontrovertible link. The public, moreover, are concerned
when they see sizeable numbers of healthy animals being
slaughtered and disposed of during outbreaks of dangerous
contagious diseases. It is important, therefore, to focus more on
preventive measures and to work closely with scientists and
veterinarians to develop viable alternative methods of control-
ling animal diseases of this kind.

The President

of the European Economic and Social Committee

Dimitris DIMITRIADIS

(11) A home page setting out the standards and indicators — and exactly
what they mean — could be part of the information platform, particu-
larly in conjunction with a labelling scheme.

(12) The Commission's proposed definition of organic products is given in
the Proposal for a Council Regulation on organic production and label-
ling of organic products and the Proposal for a Council Regulation
amending Regulation (EEC) No 2092/91 on organic production of
agricultural products and indications referring thereto in agricultural
products and foodstuffs COM(2005) 671.