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Campaign for animal protection in the EU Constitution
A coalition of European animal protection groups is campaigning for the new European Union Constitution to include animal welfare amongst the objectives of the EU. The coalition of 25 groups, which includes the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection in the UK, GAIA in Belgium and the Ligue Anti-Vivisectione in Italy, are pointing out that the EU's constitution includes the protection of the environment as an objective but not the protection of animals. They say that this means that the EU directive on animal experimentation has to be based on the idea that it will help regulate trade.
With the addition of 10 new member states in June 2004, the EU constitution has to be revised and the new constitution adopted by 1 May 2004. The animal welfare proposal has gained political support over the last year. EU Commissioner Franz Fischler has proposed an amendment to the draft constitution that would add animal welfare to the areas in which the EU has legal competence.
The proposed text was discussed at the intergovernmental conference looking at the new constitution at the end of November. It is believed that it was rejected, but at the time of going to press a definitive account of the meeting was not available. The text said: "In formulating and implementing the Union's agriculture, fisheries, transport, internal market, research and technological development and space policies, the Union and the Member States shall pay full regard to the welfare requirements of animals, while respecting the legislative or administrative provisions and customs of Member States relating in particular to religious rites, cultural tradition and regional heritage."
The proposal was greeted with some caution by the scientific community. "Animal welfare standards are already highly regulated by EU legislation, whereas human health takes a far lower priority," said Mark Matfield, Director of the European Biomedical Research Association. "Clearly animal welfare is an important issue, but not at the expense of human health, which is now virtually excluded from the new EU constitution. There is one last chance that the intergovernmental conference that will ratify the constitution may give health a more important role, but if animal protection takes priority over human health this is surely the world turned upside down."