The Council of the European Union adopted a Regulation on 22 December 2004 on the protection of animals during transport, which helps to safeguard animal welfare by radically improving the enforcement of animal transport rules in the EU.

The Regulation amounts to a radical overhaul of existing EU rules on animal transport and identifies the chain of involvement in animal transport, defining "who is responsible for what" and thus making for more effective enforcement of the new rules.

The Regulation has more efficient monitoring tools, such as checks on vehicles via a satellite navigation system as from 2007. It also has much stricter rules for journeys of more than 8 hours, including a substantial upgrading of vehicle standards.

Information

The Joint Research Centre finalised a study on temperatures during animal transport (only available in English).

Regulation (EC) No 1/2005 refers to the International Air Transport Association (IATA) on the standards for containers for transporting live animals by air. Before arranging travel with your pet by air, you should check whether the size and construction of the container meet the design requirements of IATA standards, and ensure that your pet is familiar with its container prior to shipping. For more information, go to:
http://www.iata.org/whatwedo/cargo/live_animals/pets.htm.