Meat lobby groups fought a “hard and dirty” war against a planned EU ban on caged hens and pigs that has now been shelved, the Guardian can reveal.
In 2021 EU politicians took the radical step of agreeing to phase out the use of cages for rearing farmed animals, including hens, broilers, pigs, calves, rabbits and quails, after receiving a petition signed by more than a million people.
But a ferocious pushback from powerful farming lobbies, details of which have been seen by an investigation by the Guardian and a media consortium led by Lighthouse Reports, means that the legislation now appears to be on hold.
At one point a number of groups submitted a 60-page analysis arguing that a positive European Food Safety Authority (Efsa) assessment of the planned package was not “impartial” and contained “serious scientific errors”.
This gloomy line was reinforced by another letter to the commission from the muscular EU farm union Copa-Cogeca, which said that Efsa’s opinion would “lead to the loss of most of the European poultry sector, meat and eggs combined”.
ELV is not listed in the EU’s transparency registry and the group declined to answer questions about its funding, how it was set up, or its lobbying on the animal welfare package.
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Meat lobby groups fought a “hard and dirty” war against a planned EU ban on caged hens and pigs that has now been shelved, the Guardian can reveal.
In 2021 EU politicians took the radical step of agreeing to phase out the use of cages for rearing farmed animals, including hens, broilers, pigs, calves, rabbits and quails, after receiving a petition signed by more than a million people.
But a ferocious pushback from powerful farming lobbies, details of which have been seen by an investigation by the Guardian and a media consortium led by Lighthouse Reports, means that the legislation now appears to be on hold.
At one point a number of groups submitted a 60-page analysis arguing that a positive European Food Safety Authority (Efsa) assessment of the planned package was not “impartial” and contained “serious scientific errors”.
This gloomy line was reinforced by another letter to the commission from the muscular EU farm union Copa-Cogeca, which said that Efsa’s opinion would “lead to the loss of most of the European poultry sector, meat and eggs combined”.
ELV is not listed in the EU’s transparency registry and the group declined to answer questions about its funding, how it was set up, or its lobbying on the animal welfare package.
The original article contains 888 words, the summary contains 210 words. Saved 76%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!