EUforAnimals – Working together to strengthen the voice of animals in Europe

Billions of animals across Europe suffer from the cruel practices of farm animal husbandry, in experimental laboratories and illegal breeding facilities. An improvement of the political representation of animals is necessary not only in Germany. Therefore, as co-signatories of the petition #EUforAnimals, we demand together with many other organizations from the European Parliament to give more importance to animal welfare and to strengthen the voice of animals at the European level.   

The focus of the demand is to explicitly express the responsibility in the name of the responsible Directorate General and in the job title of the responsible EU Commissioner as an important first step for improvements in animal welfare. The inclusion of animal welfare in the job title of responsible EU Commissioners would concretely contribute to ensuring adequate representation of all animals affected by EU legislation. 

Together with more than 40 European animal welfare organizations, we advocate for the #EUforAnimals campaign. Since autumn 2021, Animal Society has contacted all German-speaking Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to convince them of the importance of more animal welfare in European animal (protection) policy. 

In November 2021, part of our team was in Brussels to personally talk to members of the European Parliament about animal policy and convince them of the #EUforAnimals campaign. We delivered 150 letters to politicians asking them to give more importance to animal welfare at the European level. 

In recent months, more than 145,000 citizens* and 158 MEPs have expressed their support for the #EUforAnimals campaign. This massive cross-party and pan-European political support has led to the preparation of an oral question, submitted on January 10 and supported by the largest number of MEPs in many years. The Conference of Presidents is now called to decide in a plenary session whether the Commission should answer the question within the next three months (before April 11) and whether it should be turned into a resolution. 

Animal welfare must not end at German borders!  Strengthen the voice of animals in Europe and sign the petition at www.euforanimals.eu