The Netherlands and four other EU countries are advocating for restrictions on the transport of slaughter animals in a working document for the European agriculture ministers. The countries of the so-called Vught working group (Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, and Sweden) want a maximum transport time of 8 hours for all slaughter animals within the EU.
This would align the EU countries with earlier recommendations from the ANIT committee of the European Parliament, which previously conducted a comprehensive investigation into abuses during animal transports. The ‘position paper’ of the five countries will be discussed by the agriculture ministers on Monday.
The working document aims to bring the 27 EU countries to a single position, after which negotiations with the European Parliament can take place regarding the modernization of the animal transport rules that are over twenty years old. It is noted that since then, both the number and scale of animal transports have increased enormously.
The core of the note is that long-distance transports of slaughter animals within the EU and to countries outside the EU should be limited. Larger cages should also be provided, animals must be fed en route if necessary, and no transport should occur during very hot weather. Ideally, no live animals for slaughter would be transported abroad—only batches of meat.
Therefore, it must be established that loading and unloading time also counts as transport time, that video camera monitoring should be in place at transshipment points at loading and unloading stations, that trucks must be equipped with GPS monitoring, and that truck drivers must have completed special training for animal transports. The position paper of the five EU countries makes recommendations based on dozens of practical cases.
Although the five initiators make many recommendations for more uniform rules across all EU countries, they have not found a solution for the major differences in control and enforcement of animal transports among EU countries.
What may be overlooked by inspectors in one country is punished in neighboring countries. This mainly causes problems for international transports. Also, some texts from the partly outdated regulations are open to multiple interpretations.
On some points, no definitive positions are yet recommended or adopted, and experts from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) are being asked for further advice. By doing this, the ministers are not yet accepting the recommendations and choices of the European Parliament.