Farm Animal Welfare in Europe
We support European animal welfare advocates to promote historic reforms, which could reach billions of animals and inspire higher standards around the world.
The countries of the European Union contain over 2.3 billion farmed land animals and 1.1 billion farmed fish.
The EU is revising its animal welfare laws for the first time in 20 years; it aims to account for new scientific evidence, improve enforcement, and ensure a higher level of welfare. This gives citizens, consumers and animal advocates in Europe a chance to support major changes across many countries at the same time.
Europe is a global leader in farm animal welfare. Advocates are working to continue that progress by engaging in the EU’s reform process, securing welfare pledges from European companies, and promoting better and more widespread welfare practices and standards.
Examples of recent progress:
- Advocates have secured over 1,800 welfare pledges from major food companies across Europe. Thanks in large part to these pledges, most hens in Europe are now cage-free.
- In 2020, a European Citizens’ Initiative to ‘End the Cage Age’ was submitted to the EU Commission, with 1.4 million citizens signing a statement of support. In response, the Commission committed to present a legislative proposal to prohibit the use of cages on farms and overhaul welfare protections for all of Europe’s farmed animals.
The next few years present an opportunity for European citizens, advocates, and funders to support the modernization and strengthening of EU-wide farm animal welfare. This could lead to historic reforms, which could in turn help billions of animals by inspiring higher standards around the world.