Amend­menten Hazekamp op het ontwerp­advies van de mili­eu­com­missie over het welzijn van land­bouw­huis­­dieren

Draft opinion on the implementation report on on-farm animal welfare of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety.

Amendment 1
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Recital A

Draft opinion

A. whereas livestock farming plays a prominent role in EU agriculture, as it is not only economically and environmentally, but also culturally highly significant for EU regions;

Amendment

A. whereas industrial livestock farming plays a prominent role in EU agriculture, and in just over a decade several million farms have ceased to exist, representing over a third of all farms in Europe, of which the vast majority were small family businesses, due to upscaling and intensification of the agricultural system;

Amendment 2
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Recital A a (new)

Amendment

A a. whereas despite significant developments in animal welfare science have taken place since the existing EU farm animal welfare legislation was adopted, it is vital to revise and augment the existing body of animal welfare legislation to bring it into line with the latest scientific advancements and to respond to societal demands for improvement of the welfare of animals and the elimination of outdated livestock housing systems and other production practices that negatively impact their welfare;

Amendment 3
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Recital A b (new)

Amendment

A b. whereas unhealthy diets, high in salt, sugar, fat and animal protein are a leading risk factor for disease and mortality in Europe; and at the same time antimicrobial resistance, hazardous pesticides and exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals via food and food packaging, are also increased threats to public health;

Amendment 4
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Recital A c (new)

Amendment

A c. whereas a diet rich in plant-based foods and with fewer animal source foods confers both improved health and environmental benefits, and transformation to healthy diets by 2050 will require substantial dietary shifts, whereas global consumption of fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes will have to double, and consumption of foods such as red meat and sugar will have to be reduced by more than 50% in order to achieve dietary shifts towards less resource-intensive products (more plant based, less refined);

Amendment 5
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Recital A d (new)

Amendment

A d. whereas industrial livestock farming results in high greenhouse gas emissions, soil degradation, air pollution, water contamination and biodiversity loss, and agriculture is responsible for about 90% of EU ammonia emissions, which has significant negative effects on the environment and biodiversity, and is a major contributor to the air pollution that kills 400,000 European citizens each year;

Amendment 6
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Recital A e (new)

Amendment

A e. whereas Article 13 of the TFEU considers animals as sentient beings, thus are capable of feeling pleasure and pain; therefore EU legislation must ensure that animals are kept in conditions that do not subject them to maltreatment, abuse, pain or suffering;

Amendment 7
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Recital A f (new)

Amendment

A f. whereas there are over 300 million farmed animals each year caged for part or all of their lives, and there are grave concerns throughout the EU regarding the welfare of animals reared and farmed in cages, as animals are not even able to stand straight, to stretch or to turn around and it is impossible for animals kept in cages to exhibit their natural behaviour;

Amendment 8
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Recital A g (new)

Amendment

A g. whereas in the EU nearly 120 million rabbits are commercially farmed, of which almost all of them are confined to cages for their entire lives; whereas in the EU over 350 million laying hens are commercially farmed, of which almost half of them are kept in overcrowded cages with no more space than an A4 sheet of paper; whereas in the EU around 11 million sows have to give birth and suckle their piglets in a cage; whereas in the EU at least 140 million quail are kept in cages in which they are unable to perform basic behaviour; whereas in the EU around 40 million ducks and geese are annually imprisoned in cages during their lives for the production of foie gras; whereas in the EU around 20 million dairy calves are born every year, of which more than half of these are kept in small, individual pens away from their mother;

Amendment 9
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Recital A h (new)

Amendment

A h. whereas it has been found that the General Directive has generally been less impactful than the species-specific Directives, due to the vague nature of the requirements and the large margins of interpretation it has allowed and the absence of species-specific protections for dairy cows, broiler and hen breeders, rabbits, sheep and turkeys;

Amendment 10
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Recital A i (new)

Amendment

A i. whereas moving away from intensive livestock farming practices towards sustainable, extensive agriculture will deliver an immense reduction in methane emissions from the agricultural sectorwhile also providing benefits for the environment, biodiversity, animal welfare and public health; whereas drastically reducing the number of animals kept in the EU for agriculture is an essential step in this process;

Amendment 11
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Recital A j (new)

Amendment

A j. whereas adapting our diets and drastically reducing the production and consumption of animals while developing alternative protein sources to substitute meat, dairy and other animal products is a cost-effective, quick, healthy and easy measure to fight methane-induced climate change and will realise countless co-benefits for human, animal and ecosystem health and welfare;

Amendment 12
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Recital A k (new)

Amendment

A k. whereas there are grave concerns regarding the poor welfare, high stress levels, high mortality and morbidity of farm rabbits in Europe, as already concluded by EFSA in 2005; whereas the detrimental effects on the welfare of farm rabbits are often the result of poor housing systems and cages;

Amendment 13
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Recital A l (new)

Amendment

A l. whereas the agricultural subsidies to promote agricultural products inside and outside the EU drastically increased the past years, namely to 142,5 million euros in 2017, 188.5 million euros in 2018 and 200 million euros in 2020;

Amendment 14
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Recital A m (new)

Amendment

A m. whereas animals should no longer be adapted to the system, but the system should be adapted to the animals’ needs and behaviour instead, meaning that it should not be allowed to hurt an animal, cause injury to an animal or harm the health or welfare of the animal with the aim of housing the animal in a certain way;

Amendment 15
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Paragraph 1

Draft opinion

1. Welcomes the Commission’s efforts to consolidate legislation on animal welfare and animal health and ensure that the requirements are clear; stresses that these requirements must be applied correctly and uniformly throughout the EU and that regular and comprehensive checks must be carried out; welcomes the Commission’s planned revision of legislation in this area in 2023 in keeping with the objectives of the Farm to Fork Strategy;

Amendment

1. Welcomes the Commission’s commitment to consolidate legislation on animal welfare and animal health, taking into account the latest advancements in animal welfare science and responding to public, political and market demands for higher animal welfare standards, and ensure that the requirements are clear; stresses that these requirements must be applied correctly and uniformly throughout the EU and that regular and comprehensive checks must be carried out; welcomes the Commission’s planned revision of animal welfare legislation in keeping with the objectives of the Farm to Fork Strategy, but urges the Commission to already deliver concrete proposals by 2022;

Amendment 16
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 a (new)

Amendment

1 a. Notes that the EU Directives on on-farm animal welfare are found to be outdated, often inadequate, too vague, lacking specific protections and providing exceptions or derogations to requirements, resulting into a number of undesirable practices violating the welfare of animals that have continued to be allowed;

Amendment 17
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 b (new)

Amendment

1 b. Notes that 70 billion farm animals are kept worldwide and transported globally on an ever-increasing scale, and that the industrial livestock system, by concentrating large amounts of fragile and stressed animals in confined spaces, is one of the major risk factors of the outbreak and the spreading of zoonoses and poses therefore great danger to public health; is therefore of the opinion that the EU needs to swift away from the continued intensification of the livestock production to regional and small-scale food production;

Amendment 18
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 c (new)

Amendment

1 c. Stresses that, in the context of food safety, environmental protection, climate action, animal welfare and equality between Member States, the Commission must at all times ensure strict enforcement of European legislation and calls on the Commission to make more and better use of infringement procedures in this regard, including strong sanctions;

Amendment 19
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Paragraph 2

Draft opinion

2. Welcomes the Council’s efforts to promote the development of an EU animal welfare label based on harmonised and technically substantiated criteria;

Amendment

2. Welcomes the Council’s efforts to promote the development of an EU animal welfare label based on harmonised and technically substantiated criteria, which should be species-specific and cover all the stages of the life of the animal, and underlines the importance of a mandatory method of production and origin labelling of meat and dairy products in order to increase transparency, empower consumers and create a level-playing field;

Amendment 20
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Paragraph 3

Draft opinion

3. Draws attention to the importance of animal welfare during transport and welcomes the establishment of the ANIT committee of inquiry;

Amendment

3. Draws attention to the violations of animal welfare during transport and welcomes the establishment of the ANIT committee of inquiry on the protection of animals during transport; calls in this regard on the Commission to implement and enforce Council Directive 1/2005/EC of 22 December 2004 on the protection of animals during transport and to establish a ban on the transport of animals to countries outside of the EU in case the welfare of these animals is not guaranteed, referring to the current incompliance with the ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Communities in Luxembourg that animal welfare protection does not stop at the EU's external borders and that animal transporters departing from the European Union must therefore also comply with European animal welfare rules when leaving the EU;

Amendment 21
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 a (new)

Amendment

3 a. Emphasises that the transport of live animals does not only pose severe risks to the welfare and health of the animals transported, but also to public health due to the possible spread of diseases, and underlines in this regard the importance of reducing, refining and replacing live transport and to make sure that the revision of the Council Directive1/2005/EC of 22 December 2004 on the protection of animals during transport contains comprehensive species- and category-specific requirements, especially with regards to the maximum duration of a transport, and a more strict and transparent monitoring and reporting system to ensure that systematic violations will be effectively identified and prevented, and that this revision is in full alignment with the objectives of the Farm to Fork Strategy;

Amendment 22
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Paragraph 4

Draft opinion

4. Welcomes the fact that the common agricultural policy (CAP) seeks to enhance the welfare of on-farm animals by providing financial incentives and by focusing on the enforcement of animal welfare legislation; calls on the Member States to offer greater and effective support to farmers who voluntarily comply with more stringent animal welfare requirements, including through national support programmes;

Amendment

4. Welcomes the fact that the common agricultural policy (CAP) seeks to enhance the welfare of on-farm animals by providing financial incentives and by focusing on the enforcement of animal welfare legislation; however, as noted in the Commission’s evaluation of the latest Animal Welfare Strategy, Member States have neglected to take full advantage of these funds for animal welfare purposes, and millions of euros in EU rural development funds available for improving animal welfare are currently unused or poorly used, therefore calls on the Member States to offer greater and effective support to farmers who voluntarily comply with more stringent animal welfare requirements, including through national support programmes;

Amendment 23
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 a (new)

Amendment

4 a. Underlines the key role that the EU should play in supporting the development of agro-ecological and plant-based agricultural practices;

Amendment 24
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 b (new)

Amendment

4 b. Stresses that the market for animal products from cage-free, free range and organic systems, as well as the market for plant-based alternatives, is growing in the EU;

Amendment 25
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Paragraph 6

Draft opinion

6. Stresses the importance of regular exchanges with representatives of national authorities, agricultural stakeholder organisations and experts concerning examples of good practice and possible improvements in the area of animal welfare; points out that, despite its low cost, knowledge transfer in this area is highly efficient and should therefore be put into practice more quickly.

Amendment

6. Stresses the importance of regular exchanges with representatives of national authorities, agricultural stakeholder organisations, NGOs and experts concerning examples of good practice and possible improvements in the area of animal welfare; points out that, despite its low cost, knowledge transfer in this area is highly efficient and should therefore be put into practice more quickly.

Amendment 26
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 a (new)

Amendment

6 a. Stresses the need for urgent and bold policy and legislative change in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence of the unsustainability of the current food system and the higher costs of a failure to act, paying full regard to the welfare of farm animals, given that this is integral to food sustainability, and recommends that it includes measures to stimulate the adoption of higher animal welfare standards, a reduction of the amount of farm animals and stocking densities, and an increase of the production and consumption of plant-based products at the same time;

Amendment 27
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 b (new)

Amendment

6 b. Stresses the need to swiftly move away from industrial animal farming by a significant reduction of the amount of animals kept in the EU, aiming at a 70% reduction in livestock numbers in the EU, with particular focus on Member States with high livestock density such as the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark;

Amendment 28
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 c (new)

Amendment

6 c. Urges the revision of Council Directive 98/58/EC concerning the protection of animals kept for farming purposes, which sets down generic rules that have proved difficult to implement and enforce, suggests therefore transposing this Directive into a Regulation, thereby creating the possibility of delivering delegated and implementing acts to set down welfare requirements for species for which no species-specific EU minimum standards presently exist, including dairy cattle, beef cattle, sheep, goats, turkeys, ducks, geese, rabbits, farmed fish and of all their offspring;

Amendment 29
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 d (new)

Amendment

6 d. Notes that broiler chickens are the most numerous terrestrial farmed animals in the EU, of which the vast majority coming from intensive farming systems, while their welfare is currently insufficiently guaranteed by the various pieces of EU legislation as they do not address the main problems that are intrinsic to this industry such as the welfare problems of ever fast-growing broiler chickens;

Amendment 30
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 e (new)

Amendment

6 e. Urges the revision of Council Directive 2007/43 laying down minimum rules for the protection of chickens kept for meat production in order to reduce the maximum stocking density and reduce the sector’s dependency on antibiotics, drastically improve the poor welfare of chickens by providing them with natural light, fresh air, more space and enrichments and establishing a ban on the rearing of extremely fast-growing chickens; reiterates its call to accelerate a shift to alternative rearing systems that use higher welfare or traditional broiler breeds, which are more robust and healthy than fast-growing breeds, and to not allow any import products that do not meet EU standards;

Amendment 31
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 f (new)

Amendment

6 f. Stresses that rabbits are the second most farmed species in the EU in terms of numbers of animals, with a majority of them reared in cages with inadequate welfare standards; calls in this regard on the Commission to propose specific EU legislation on minimum standards for the protection of farmed rabbits;

Amendment 32
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 g (new)

Amendment

6 g. Urges the revision of Council Directive 1999/74/EC laying down minimum standards for the protection of laying hens in order to rapidly phase-out and prohibit enriched battery cages and cage-free systems for all laying hens, to create a level-playing field and at the same time improve the welfare of animals kept in the EU;

Amendment 33
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 h (new)

Amendment

6 h. Disapproves the unethical and systematic killing of billions of male chicks in the EU every year, whether by using a shredding machine or carbon dioxide gas, as it is a violation of animal welfare law; emphasizes that France and Germany already announced a ban on the systematic killing of male chicks and urges the Commission and the Member States to follow this example;

Amendment 34
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 i (new)

Amendment

6 i. Calls for Council Directive 2008/120/EC laying down minimum standards for the protection of pigs to be revised to inter alia remove the 28 day exemption for confining sows in individual stalls and to ensure that the animals are kept in group housing throughout the entire gestation period and farrowing;

Amendment 35
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 j (new)

Amendment

6 j. Underlines that in the context of food safety, environment, climate action, animal welfare and equality between Member States, the Commission should ensure full enforcement of Directives, and urges the Commission that in the event of violations by the Member States she imposes strong sanctions, starting with the routine docking of piglet tails, which has no longer been allowed in the EU since 1991;

Amendment 36
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 k (new)

Amendment

6 k. Stresses that, although a large proportion of sheep and goats are reared in extensive farming conditions, such as on pastureland, significant concerns exist regarding animal welfare in intensive goat and sheep farming; underlines the alarming situation of male goat-kids that are treated as a waste product, as well as problems as mutilations, lameness, transport problems and diseases caused by communicable diseases, and calls on the Commission to address these concerns in the upcoming revision of animal welfare legislation;

Amendment 37
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 l (new)

Amendment

6 l. Is deeply concerned by the stable fires occurring in the EU that lead to the horrid death of animals and the release of toxic fumes; calls on the Commission and the Member States to tackle the problem of stable fires by promoting best practices and by introducing fire safety requirements, including preventive measures and mandatory sprinkler installations, measures which guarantee that animals can escape from their stables in the event of fire and a ban on air washing installations, as livestock barns do not only tend to be very prone to fire due to dust, straw and manure gases, but air washing installations, and their ventilation systems, are also flammable and rapidly spread the fire due to fanning;

Amendment 38
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 m (new)

Amendment

6 m. Is of the opinion that animals should no longer be slaughtered in the EU according to methods that cause additional distress, such as the electrical water bath method stunning of poultry and CO2 stunning of pigs, and urges the Member States to ensure that all animals slaughtered in the EU are stunned prior to slaughter, without any exceptions, as confirmed by the European Court of Justice ruling C-336/19 of 17 December 2020 that Member States have the right to introduce mandatory pre-slaughter stunning;

Amendment 39
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 n (new)

Amendment

6 n. Reiterates its call on the Commission to revise Council Directive 98/58/EC concerning the protection of animals kept for farming purposes with the objective of ending the use of cages in EU animal farming by 2027; and suggests therefore that the Commission continues cooperating with the Member States in order to support the implementation and proper enforcement of legal provisions for the phase-out of all cages in EU animal farming;

Amendment 40
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 o (new)

Amendment

6 o. Reiterates its call on the Commission to bring forward proposals to ban the cruel and unnecessary force-feeding of ducks and geese for the production of foie gras;

Amendment 41
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 p (new)

Amendment

6 p. Reminds that intensive livestock farming is a major contributor to air pollution from ammonia, NOx, particulates and methane emissions and calls for urgent action to reduce these emissions and protect public health;

Amendment 42
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 q (new)

Amendment

6 q. Emphasises the need to ensure that animal welfare does not suffer under new measures for the agricultural sector; stresses that no measures, targets, or incentives should lead to a restriction of livestock animals to indoor confinements; emphasises that animals must be able to graze and roam outdoors and should not be prevented from exhibiting their natural behaviour;

Amendment 43
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 r (new)

Amendment

6 r. Notes that large livestock farms with more than 50 livestock units account for about 70% of agricultural methane emissions, and 40% of total anthropogenic methane emissions in the EU; underlines that this makes mega livestock farms one of the biggest sources of methane emissions in the EU; emphasises that in addition to their methane emissions, mega livestock farms are extremely harmful for animal welfare, public health and the environment; stresses that this demonstrates an urgent need to swiftly phase out intensive animal agriculture in the EU, including a ban on the development of new mega livestock farms; calls on the Commission to put forward concrete and binding measures targeting the industrial livestock sector;

Amendment 44
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 s (new)

Amendment

6 s. Considers that sectors that have a major impact on environmental, climate and animal welfare issues should not be promoted by the EU and therefore calls on the Commission to cease funding promotion campaigns to support animal products,

Amendment 45
Anja Hazekamp

Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 t (new)

Amendment

6 t. Stresses that the Covid-19 pandemic has shown that industrial farming practices, by keeping animals in close proximity to each other, pose a huge risk for the emergence of new pandemics;