Activities of Aurélia BEIGNEUX related to 2020/2085(INI)
Shadow opinions (1)
OPINION on the implementation report on on-farm animal welfare
Amendments (48)
Amendment 13 #
Draft opinion
Recital A a (new)
Recital A a (new)
Aa. whereas animal welfare is a topic of growing interest for society as it becomes more sensitive to how animals are treated, and especially how they are farmed;
Amendment 17 #
Draft opinion
Recital A a (new)
Recital A a (new)
Aa. whereas a code adopted by Members of the Parliament of Wallonia that came into force on 1 January 2019 defines an animal as a sentient being, with feelings, emotions and even a certain level of consciousness;
Amendment 23 #
Draft opinion
Recital A a (new)
Recital A a (new)
Aa. whereas the health and economic crisis has cost farmers dear;
Amendment 28 #
Draft opinion
Recital A b (new)
Recital A b (new)
Ab. whereas in Europe, the European Union began drawing up legislation on animal welfare following the adoption in 1976 of a general convention of the Council of Europe concerning all species of domestic animals;
Amendment 41 #
Draft opinion
Recital A e (new)
Recital A e (new)
Ae. whereas there are conditions that humankind should provide animals with to ensure their welfare: • freedom from hunger, malnutrition and thirst: they must have access to water and an appropriate amount of food that meets the needs of their species; • freedom from fear and distress: the conditions in which they are reared must not cause them psychological suffering; • freedom from heat stress or physical discomfort: the animal must have a certain degree of physical comfort; • freedom from pain, injury and disease: the animal must not be hurt or injured through ill-treatment and it must receive treatment if it falls ill; • freedom to express normal patterns of behaviour: its environment must be a suitable one for its species;
Amendment 46 #
Draft opinion
Recital A f (new)
Recital A f (new)
Amendment 49 #
Draft opinion
Recital A g (new)
Recital A g (new)
Ag. whereas unfair competition in the farming sector from outside of the EU is one of the indirect causes of the deterioration in animals’ living conditions caused by the drive for profitability;
Amendment 52 #
Draft opinion
Recital A h (new)
Recital A h (new)
Ah. whereas when the Suez Canal was blocked by the cargo ship Ever Given this forced many vessels to wait out at sea for several days. Ships carrying live animals were among these vessels; whereas such a situation is unacceptable for animals;
Amendment 53 #
Draft opinion
Recital A i (new)
Recital A i (new)
Ai. whereas more than 2.8 million live cattle, sheep and goats were exported by sea from the EU Member States to countries in the Mediterranean region in 2018. This figure is made up of over 625 000 head of cattle and 2.2 million sheep and goats (56 % of them from Romania) that were shipped to countries such as Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, or Libya, according to an April 2020 report by the European Commission;
Amendment 58 #
Draft opinion
Recital A k (new)
Recital A k (new)
Ak. whereas in 2016, the Directorate- General for Health and Food Safety consulted EU citizens to gather their opinions on animal welfare within the EU; whereas, too, 94 % of the EU citizens questioned were of the view that protecting the welfare of farm livestock is important; whereas, finally, 82 % of EU citizens were of the view that the welfare of farm livestock should be better protected than it is at present;
Amendment 84 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 a (new)
Paragraph 1 a (new)
1a. Points out that the Member States should be able to prohibit the sale of products within their territory that they consider to be injurious to animal welfare, even if said products are authorised in other Member States;
Amendment 91 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 b (new)
Paragraph 1 b (new)
1b. Regrets that after having banned certain practices within its territory on animal welfare grounds, a Member State can be forced to accept in the name of the single market the marketing of foreign products that contravene this ban;
Amendment 93 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 c (new)
Paragraph 1 c (new)
1c. Calls on the Commission to make animal welfare a ground permitting derogation from the single market, as is the case for health, environment or consumer protection;
Amendment 94 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 d (new)
Paragraph 1 d (new)
1d. Regrets the decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union of 1 October 2020 in which the Court prevented the imposition by Member States of a mandatory label mentioning the geographical origin of milk; recalls that the mention of the geographic origin is conducive to better informing consumers and improving animal welfare, while ensuring farmers a better remuneration;
Amendment 96 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 e (new)
Paragraph 1 e (new)
1e. Calls therefore on the Commission to put forward an amendment to Regulation No 1169/2011, and its Articles 26, 38 and 39 in particular, in order to permit Member States to impose labelling mentioning the geographical origin of all foodstuffs;
Amendment 107 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Welcomes the Council’s efforts to promote the development of an EU animal welfare label based on harmonised and technically substantiated criteria; and that does not jeopardise the competitiveness of the agricultural sector vis-à-vis third countries;
Amendment 120 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2 a (new)
Paragraph 2 a (new)
2a. Recalls that the Commission is preparing a future EU label; reiterates that this label has to cover the farming, transport and slaughter of the animals;
Amendment 121 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2 a (new)
Paragraph 2 a (new)
2a. Calls on the Commission to bring in a mandatory label that will give consumers precise information on: – the farming method: intensive or extensive, with or without cages; – the transport method: by land or sea, over a short or long distance; –the slaughter method: with or without prior stunning;
Amendment 148 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 a (new)
Paragraph 3 a (new)
3a. Reiterates the importance of taking account of the upcoming findings of the ANIT Committee of Inquiry; stresses the good work being done in the ANIT Committee of Inquiry;
Amendment 155 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 b (new)
Paragraph 3 b (new)
3b. Points out that animal welfare also extends to the need to transport the animals; stresses that in certain cases the conditions in which they are transported do not ensure sufficient dignity;
Amendment 156 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 c (new)
Paragraph 3 c (new)
3c. Points out that an arsenal of laws in this field (live animal transport) already exists but that these are not enforced;
Amendment 157 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 d (new)
Paragraph 3 d (new)
3d. Points out that transport by sea, particularly when animals are exported outside the European Union, causes livestock terrible distress; points out that the animals are cooped up in crowed pens with not enough room to move around and must cope with the ship’s motion, a lack of ventilation, unsuitable drinking fixtures and also poor hygiene conditions as a result of insufficient litter facilities;
Amendment 158 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 e (new)
Paragraph 3 e (new)
3e. Points out also that Council Regulation (EC) No 1/2005 of 22 December 2004 on the protection of animals during transport considers the time spent in transport by sea to be a rest period;
Amendment 159 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 f (new)
Paragraph 3 f (new)
3f. Calls, therefore, on the Commission to recognise that transport by sea does not permit a genuine rest period for animals;
Amendment 160 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 g (new)
Paragraph 3 g (new)
3g. Calls also on the Commission to prohibit or restrict drastically the transport of animals by sea because of the difficulty, if not indeed the impossibility, of allowing animals to rest during the time, which may last for several weeks, that they are being transported by sea;
Amendment 161 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 h (new)
Paragraph 3 h (new)
3h. Calls, finally, on the Commission to draw up a blacklist of third countries where livestock is clearly ill-treated in order to prohibit the export of live animals to said countries;
Amendment 176 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 a (new)
Paragraph 4 a (new)
4a. Encourages a continuation of the policy of financial support for farmers as part of animal welfare improvement programmes;
Amendment 181 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 b (new)
Paragraph 4 b (new)
4b. Calls for targeted support to be set up that prioritises maintaining or even raising the current productivity of the farmers concerned;
Amendment 183 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 c (new)
Paragraph 4 c (new)
4c. Points out that castration of piglets to prevent the appearance of disagreeable odours when the meat is cooked is painful for the animal and costly for breeders;
Amendment 184 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 d (new)
Paragraph 4 d (new)
4d. Calls, therefore, on Member States to prohibit castration of piglets;
Amendment 185 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 e (new)
Paragraph 4 e (new)
4e. Calls also on the Commission to permit Member States to prohibit the import of products from pigs that have been castrated;
Amendment 186 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 f (new)
Paragraph 4 f (new)
4f. Recalls that intensive fur farming of animals such as mink continues in Europe; recalls that the conditions in which fur animals are farmed and slaughtered are cruel; recalls also in this regard that overcrowding and a lack of hygiene on these farms facilitates the development of zoonoses or diseases, as occurred with COVID-19;
Amendment 187 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 g (new)
Paragraph 4 g (new)
4g. Encourages Member States, therefore, to prohibit fur farming and the sale and import of products derived from these farms;
Amendment 188 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 h (new)
Paragraph 4 h (new)
4h. Points out that intensive farming is harmful to the environment and cares very little about animal welfare; points out that factory farms increase the risk of epidemics linked to the concentration of animals; points out also that products from intensive farming only offer a very low health and nutritional quality for consumers; points out, finally, that intensive farming constitutes harmful competition for the family farm model that shapes our landscapes;
Amendment 189 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 i (new)
Paragraph 4 i (new)
4i. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to turn their backs on this out-of-date model and promote instead small farms that care about animal welfare, the environment and consumers;
Amendment 190 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 j (new)
Paragraph 4 j (new)
4j. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to progressively ban caged and battery farming, in which 370 million animals are ill-treated every year in Europe; calls also in this regard on the Commission and the Member States to provide farmers using these farming methods with funding for alternative facilities;
Amendment 191 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 k (new)
Paragraph 4 k (new)
4k. Points out the many advantages of mobile slaughterhouses, as they: – eliminate the need for animal transport, one factor for ill-treatment owing to the length of the journeys, cramped and crowded conditions, and temperatures that are sometimes too high or, alternatively, too low; – replace traditional slaughterhouses which are closing and hence lie further and further away from farms, increasing still more animal transport times; – eliminate the ill-treatment sometimes noted in traditional slaughterhouses, such as ritual slaughter without prior stunning; – eliminate the risk of spreading diseases, including COVID-19, unlike in industrial slaughterhouses; – eliminate stress for animals as the farmer is there with them;
Amendment 192 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 l (new)
Paragraph 4 l (new)
4l. Calls, therefore, on the Commission to: – finance mobile slaughterhouses; – ensure the general public is better informed, for example by supporting labels established by local stakeholders;
Amendment 196 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Points out that individual management practices often have a greater influence on animal welfare than rules alone; calls on the Commission to adopt a more output-oriented approach to future projectn approach to future projects that is more oriented to output and to feedback from consultations with professionals;
Amendment 216 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 a (new)
Paragraph 6 a (new)
6a. Calls for the deployment of any EU action to be conditional upon prior consultation with the professionals concerned;
Amendment 221 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 b (new)
Paragraph 6 b (new)
6b. Recalls that the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in a judgment of 17 December 2020 (Case C- 336/19) recognised the right of a Member State to require, in the context of ritual slaughter, ‘a reversible stunning procedure which cannot result in the animal’s death’;
Amendment 225 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 c (new)
Paragraph 6 c (new)
6c. Calls, therefore, on Member States to bring in legislation prohibiting slaughter without prior stunning, as in addition to causing a slow and dreadful death, this causes contamination by the intestinal bacteria Escherichia Coli to increase;
Amendment 230 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 d (new)
Paragraph 6 d (new)
6d. Calls also on the Commission to permit Member States to prohibit the import of products from animals slaughtered in another Member State or in a third country without prior stunning;
Amendment 232 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 e (new)
Paragraph 6 e (new)
6e. Points out that the Commission and Parliament consult the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) on a regular basis in order for the Authority to present scientific reports linked to animal welfare;
Amendment 234 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 f (new)
Paragraph 6 f (new)
6f. Notes, however, that many of the recommendations made by this Authority have not produced any action; notes thus that in the past 15 years various reports have concluded that the conditions in which rabbits, dairy cows, fish, cattle and sheep are farmed need to be regulated, without these recommendations giving rise to decision-making by the EU institutions.
Amendment 239 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 g (new)
Paragraph 6 g (new)
6g. Calls on the Commission to take account of past and future reports on the welfare of farmed animals by the European Food Safety Authority;
Amendment 242 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 h (new)
Paragraph 6 h (new)
6h. Welcomes initiatives opposing maceration of chicks; emphasises that approximately 300 million male chicks are killed every year in the European Union, at least 45 million of them in France;
Amendment 256 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 s (new)
Paragraph 6 s (new)
6s. Recalls that 80 % of horsemeat sold in France, a figure of 9 000 tonnes in 2019, is imported and that with no proper labelling to inform consumers, they mainly eat horsemeat imported from South America; points out that some farms have been designated ‘fields of horror’ because of the ill-treatment that pervades there; stresses that without checks, these abuses ultimately arrive on European soil through EU distribution chains;