EU livestock strategy puts animal welfare back on the political agenda. Now comes the hard part.

Animal welfare is often framed as competing with the future of European livestock farming. We welcome that the European Commission's Livestock Strategy challenges this narrative, recognising that better welfare contributes to healthier animals, more resilient farms, improved consumer trust and a more sustainable European food system.

The Strategy signals long-awaited animal welfare reforms, including revisions of existing EU rules for laying hens, broilers and pigs, with references to cage bans, import requirements, welfare indicators and transition financing. It also suggests assessing the export of live animals for slaughter and investing in small-scale and mobile slaughter facilities to improve welfare and strengthen rural economies through shorter transport distances and local capacity.

This is a much needed and welcomed first step after years of uncertainty, but major gaps remain. Whilst the envisioned measures – prohibiting cages, ending male chick culling and the introduction of indicators and equivalent import measures – are important and necessary, they do not amount to a comprehensive reform capable of ensuring species-appropriate keeping. Crucially, any species other than chickens and pigs are completely left out of a concrete legislative proposal and are relegated to "a progressive follow-up to the ECI End the Cage Age." This gap not only affects the species concerned, but also leaves farmers in the dark beyond these next proposal(s).

Almost every economic and strategic case the Strategy makes for the livestock sector is also a case for a genuine EU-wide animal welfare framework.

It recognises that higher welfare improves animals’ health and resilience, reduces mortality and disease risks and can thereby increase farm profitability. Unlocking those benefits depends however on farmers having the certainty to plan long-term investments, not adapting to a succession of species-specific reforms.

The same logic applies to resilience, competitiveness and simplification. The Strategy highlights the need to reduce dependence on imported feed and inputs, strengthen the internal market and provide greater certainty for farmers and investors. Yet the proposed staggered approach risks years of fragmentation and uncertainty. A common framework, with shared principles and clear requirements for all species, would do what the Strategy itself calls for: create the predictability farmers need, ensure a level playing field, and simplify implementation for authorities and businesses alike.

This predictability should be complemented, as the Strategy notes, by a financial instrument aimed at the investment gap in transitioning to higher animal welfare standards. However, for this instrument to work, FOUR PAWS argues that long-term predictability must also be ensured with a science-based and socioeconomically flexible roadmap for producers setting a long-term horizon with gradually achievable, higher animal welfare standards.

Therefore, FOUR PAWS calls for an EU-wide animal welfare framework with common principles, equivalent import standards, welfare indicators and a clear timeline for the adoption of detailed requirements for all farmed species. Furthermore, long-term legislative predictability must be ensured to unlock the full potential of any financial instruments. Only this approach would give the sector the clarity, and hence the reassurance on investments, needed to build a resilient and animal welfare friendly livestock sector.

ENDS