EU Commission launches legal proceedings
The European Commission has announced that it will be bringing legal proceedings against fourteen member states in the coming weeks in response to their failure to enforce the EU-wide battery cage egg ban. EU Inspection Teams will be visiting all member states to collect evidence of non-compliance with legislation to support legal action and subsequent fines.
EU Health Commissioner John Dalli informed Ministers by letter in November that infringement proceedings would be launched against any country which failed to meet the January 1st2012 deadline to convert all conventional battery cages into improved 'enriched' cages or better. Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Netherlands, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania and Spain have all failed to meet the deadline.
The Commission's latest figures record that 46.7 million hens are still in conventional battery cages across Europe in spite of the ban. This constitutes 14 per cent of the Continent's entire flock.
UK farmers have objected to the trading advantage that non-compliance confers. Commenting on the news, Katy Lee, spokesman for UK farming unions in Brussels urged the Commission to act said “In good faith the UK poultry industry has fully complied with the new laws on the welfare of laying hens and now we are told 14 Member States have failed to meet the deadline. This is unacceptable.”
“We are pleased the Commission has begun legal proceedings against non-compliant Member States although it does feel like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. It is now essential that the Commission wastes no time in stamping out the illegal production and enforces large enough fines to discourage a similar scenario in the future.”
Defra has published guidance for the vet sector ahead of a proposed UK-EU Sanitary and Phytosanitary agreement.
