Status: 06/28/2021 5:58 p.m.
Animal rights activists have long been calling for a ban on agonizing animal transports. Agriculture Minister Klöckner is now campaigning for an EU-wide regulation. Critics speak of an election maneuver.
From Nadine Bader,
ARD capital studio
Too little space, long travel times, insufficient supply of water and feed: it is about suffering animals that have to stay in cramped cattle trucks for days and are ultimately slaughtered in a sometimes brutal manner without anesthesia. Millions of sheep and cattle are affected every year and are exported from the European Union to Turkey, the Middle East, North Africa and Asian countries. Animal rights activists have long been calling for animal transports to be prohibited to third countries.
Federal Minister of Agriculture Julia Klöckner now wants to end this practice. In a joint venture with the Netherlands and Luxembourg, the CDU politician is calling for an EU-wide ban on animal transport to third countries at the EU Agricultural Council. The joint declaration states that animal welfare cannot be adequately guaranteed with this type of long-distance transport. The competent authorities of the Member States could not guarantee or verify that the transports were carried out in accordance with EU regulations.
Animal rights activists are critical of the approach
At the German Animal Welfare Association, Klöckner’s approach met with mixed feelings. The animal rights activists would welcome an EU-wide regulation. As a rule, however, it takes a long time for such projects to be implemented at EU level. “National pioneers” are also needed and therefore a national ban on animal transports to certain third countries. The minister shifts responsibility. “Either down to the federal states or, as now, up to the EU,” says Thomas Schröder from the Animal Welfare Association. The Greens speak of an “election campaign maneuver on the back of the animals”. Last week, the minister blocked a ban on animal transports to third countries in the Federal Council.
Klöckner against national ban
The Federal Ministry of Agriculture, however, emphasizes that a national ban is insufficient. “This must be regulated across the EU so that it cannot be circumvented and there are no loopholes,” says Klöckner. The ministry specifically fears that, without EU-wide regulation, animals will be brought from a member state in which there is a ban on animal transport to another member state and then exported from there. In addition, it is said that a national ban would violate EU law, such as the current EU animal welfare transport regulation, which only allows further regulations by the member states within narrow limits.
No majority in the Federal Council
The Federal Council’s Committee on Agricultural Policy and Consumer Protection sees it differently. Last week he recommended that transport bans be imposed in 17 third countries, including Egypt, Turkey and Uzbekistan. The committee refers to two legal opinions. The reports come to the conclusion that a national ban “is legally possible and, given that animal welfare is anchored as a national objective in the Basic Law, is also appropriate”. However, there was no majority in the federal states for this recommendation.
Some countries have already banned certain long-distance animal transports. Including Hesse, Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein. However, research by journalists had revealed that some transports were still taking place in so-called high-risk animal welfare states. Exporters bring the animals beforehand to federal states in which veterinary offices are still issuing appropriate permits.