World Federation for Animals
WFA
To improve the well-being of all animals and end exploitation and suffering.
ID: 403197145826-48
Lobbying Activity
Response to Application of EU health and environmental standards to imported agricultural and agri-food products
16 Mar 2022
Thank you for the opportunity to submit input into this important consultation.
The World Federation for Animals welcomes this proposal and would encourage its adoption from a global animal welfare perspective. The WFA is an international coalition of animal welfare NGOs, responsible for engagement with the UN, WTO and other IGOs. We anticipate worldwide benefits from adequate standards applying to products imported into the EU. We also attach here a response from a non-member NGO ProAnimal Chile as an additional excellent and valuable response in relation to Chile, a country with significant EU trade.
The WFA view is based on the following considerations:
1. Animal welfare is a universal phenomenon. There is a widespread global public moral concern for animals, evidenced by the recent G77 sponsorship of a resolution on animal welfare at UNEA 5.2 (which was strongly supported by the EU. Animal welfare is a scientifically-based concern, with significant research on standards and their impact on sentient animals and consumers. Animal welfare impacts are global, in that modern food systems span global supply chains, the effects of poor welfare have global implications, and reducing animal suffering is morally important wherever the animals are kept.
2. Standards on animal welfare are linked to standards on environmental protection, socioeconomic fairness, sustainable development, and One Health. Intensive or inhumane methods of production can be linked to poor animal health, zoonoses emergence, habitat destruction and pollution on land and in water. These are global concerns in the light of the triple environmental crises and the COVID pandemic. Considering animal welfare alongside environmental, health and sustainable development concerns can help reinforce and meet adequate linked standards. This reinforces how the proposals are necessary, proportionate and ethically justified.
3. This proposal will ensure that poor welfare standards in other countries are not promoted and funded by EU consumption contrary to EU citizens’ own morals. For the EU to maintain a reputation for effective animal welfare standards that is in line with, and protects, its citizen’s moral concerns, it needs to ensure it responsibly and consistently demonstrates these concerns in terms of what practices it funds around the world. It needs to avoid “outsourcing” harms along supply chains or an international “race to the bottom”, and instead promote standards in line with its internationally-espoused public morals.
4. Consistency of trade standards would help achieve improvements in animal welfare worldwide standards through direct effects across the €450 million consumer market to which the EU has access. Consumers need to know their public morals are safeguarded, and producers need to know there is a fair level playing field for responsible farming and trade. By ensuring that products meet adequate animal welfare standards, this will directly incentivise better animal welfare standards for the animals traded for consumption within the EU.
5. The step would also effectively signal the importance of animal welfare standards on the international economic stage, and thereby help create examples, norms, economies of scale or scope, and fair competition that allows broader increases in global standards. These could then have legitimate indirect impacts on minimum standards through other mechanisms such as corporate standards, bilateral FTAs, subsidies, and potential international agreements.
6. This proposal could also have indirect benefits for many producers and consumers in countries of origin. Responsible producers can benefit from improved standards where this allows access to ethical markets. Furthermore, while this measure would not seek to prescribe methods of production for home consumption in other countries, it is worth noting that there is a preference for higher welfare standards amongst citizens of many countries.
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