L 45/1544
Official Journal of the European Union
EN
24.2.2022
COMMISSION PREPARATORY ACTIONS
CHAPTER PA 03 — SINGLE MARKET (cont'd) PA 03 22
(cont'd)
PA 03 22 01
(cont'd) Contribution to the Union legislation: — The preparatory action will greatly contribute to the European Green Deal and its objectives of reducing GHG emissions in the building sector. — This preparatory action will feed into the Renovation Wave action ‘Developing a 2050 whole life-cycle performance roadmap to reduce carbon emissions from buildings and advancing national benchmarking with Member States’, which is due by 2023. — The Construction Products Regulation, the Waste Framework Directive, and the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive will benefit from the results of this preparatory action. — New legislation to specifically tackle whole life-cycle emissions of Union buildings could be foreseen in the future.
PA 03 22 02
Preparatory action — Developing a system for the automated measuring of tail length and tail lesions of pigs at the slaughter line Figures (Differentiated appropriations) Appropriations 2022 Commitments
1 500 000
Appropriations 2021
Payments
Commitments
Payments
Outturn 2020 Commitments
Payments
375 000
Remarks In spite of the substantial efforts of the Commission and of the Parliament to disseminate information and best practise on keeping pigs with intact tails, routine tail docking is still practised in most Member States, in violation of Council Directive 2008/120/EC of 18 December 2008 laying down minimum standards for the protection of pigs (OJ L 47, 18.2.2009, p. 5) (Pigs Directive).
To make progress towards compliance with the provisions of the Pigs Directive, it is of uttermost importance to reliably and cost-efficiently monitor the levels of tail docking and tail lesions in all pig farms.
Such data will be extremely useful for advisory, benchmarking an potentially enforcement purposes.
The automatic detection of pig tail length and lesions at the slaughterhouse provides the most promising tool for uniform and fair monitoring of tail condition across slaughterhouses and Member States.
Several slaughterhouses and Member States are interested in adopting automated systems to score pig tail length and damage at slaughter, but return on investment has so far not been perceived as high enough, especially as there is no system ready for commercial application.
This preparatory action will consist of a joint effort between researchers, governments, industry partners and NGOs across Member States, to achieve a validated, harmonised and fair system of tail length and lesion assessment by automatically measuring lesions at the slaughterhouse.
It will consist of the following work packages: a) developing, calibrating and testing an automated system based on the analysis of camera footage in slaughterhouses characterised by different conditions and docking levels; b) developing the software to connect the system to the ICT system of the participating slaughterhouses, and converting the data automatically into reports; c) validating the system and comparing the outcomes to other data sources, such as visual assessments by trained assessors; d) assessing the functionality and impact of the system (including the costs) by discussing the outcomes with relevant stakeholders and e) piloting the system in practise, in the first instance as an aid for farmers to further refine their farm management so as to prevent tail biting and avoid routine tail docking.