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Animals have to be killed to produce meat, or in connection with other farming activities.
However, in order to ensure animal welfare, EU legislation stipulates that they must be killed in a way which avoids
unnecessary suffering. Directive 93/119/EC
requires that animals are spared any avoidable excitement,
pain or suffering during slaughter or killing and related operations, both inside and outside slaughterhouses.
This Directive needs to be revised, however, as scientific and technical knowledge in this field
has progressed. In 2004 and 2006 the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) adopted two opinions on stunning and killing methods:
- The 2004 opinion
concerns horses, cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, poultry and farmed fish:
- The 2006 opinion
concerns farmed deer, goats, rabbits, ostriches, ducks, geese and quail:
In parallel, the Community has been working to make EU animal welfare policy more widely accepted at
international level. This led to the adoption of several welfare guidelines by the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) in 2005.
In particular the OIE adopted guidelines on stunning and killing
for human consumption as well as on killing for disease-control purposes.
The revision of Directive 93/119/EC will be the first major legislative proposal by the Commission
since the adoption of the Community Action Plan on the Protection and
Welfare of Animals 2006-2010.
The new legislation is therefore likely to reflect the Action Plan, which has been widely supported by the European Parliament.
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