EU sow stall ban – total compliance unlikely
Statistics submitted to the European Commission have revealed that only ten of a total of twenty seven member states believe they will be ready to achieve compliance with the incoming partial ban on sow stalls, which will take effect as of 1st January 2013. Compassion in World Farming has estimated that this non-compliance could affect approximately 14,000 out of a total of 55,000 EU pig farms.
The member states who are not expected to achieve compliance are Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain. However, the true extent of the situation remains unclear, since Belgium, France and Portugal have either supplied insufficient data or have not supplied any and Italy have forbidden the publication of their statistics. Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Sweden are all expected to achieve compliance in time or are compliant already, and the UK banned sow stalls in 1999.
Commenting, Zoe Davies of the National Pig Association (NPA) said “Health Commissioner John Dalli has made it clear they are going to come down hard on member states that are dragging their heels... But there are countries that are not going to comply so we really need to work with the Commission to come up with a plan about what to do with that meat that is going to be illegal.”
Defra has published guidance for the vet sector ahead of a proposed UK-EU Sanitary and Phytosanitary agreement.
