Dear friends,
Today is a good day for animal welfare! The European Parliament decided on Thursday to set up an inquiry committee to control animal transports in the EU. We Greens have been calling for this committee since the past legislative period. 2018 however, a coalition of conservatives, social democrats and liberals has prevented this using bogus legal arguments. Together with Members of the Group of the European United Left, we even sued against this decision before the European Court of Justice (albeit unsuccessfully). This lawsuit and the constant pressure from civil society and in the meantime from more than 182,000 citizens who signed the petition by Martin Häusling and me (www.change.org/tiertransporte, (in German)) are now starting to be successful.
The inquiry committee is now to investigate the mass violations of the EU protection of animals during transport. Numerous studies and reports show that pigs and cows within the European Union are often transported in confined spaces far beyond the permitted times, that the water supply is often inadequate and that rules on temperatures and rest periods are not observed.
I would like to thank you for your commitment to better animal welfare! But the work is just beginning. Therefore: Please, continue to share our petition: www.change.org/tiertransporte. We Greens in the European Parliament will now do our utmost to ensure that we achieve real results in the new inquiry committee. We can no longer accept that animals suffer during transport. We have to sanction violations of applicable EU law much faster and much sharper. Because violations of law and lack of law enforcement on the back of animals must finally come to an end. I will continue to fight for this personally.
With determined European greetings,
Sven Giegold
P.S .: This Thursday I am organizing two top level webinars on the protection of nature and the environment.
At 3:30 p.m. – 5:00 p.m., we will discuss European due diligence legislation with my colleague Anna Cavazzini, EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders and Maria Flachsbarth, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development. The law is designed to ensure that companies must anticipate violations of animal welfare, human rights and environmental requirements in their supply chains and that violations can be punished. Register here for this webinar.
Also today Thursday, June 11th, 6pm-8p. we are discussing “Planetary Boundaries – Europe’s life on a knife-edge” with the Swedish professor and inventor of the Planetary Boundaries Johan Rockström. Together with other experts, my colleague Jutta Paulus and I would like to get to the bottom of the question: What are the challenges for life within the planetary limits? What do we have to do to get back into the safe area? The webinar will be in English and will be simultaneously translated into German in writing. Places are limited, register now.