As the 2024 European Elections approach (scheduled for Saturday, June 8 and 9, 2024), Italy is witnessing a unique wave of mobilisation in animal rights defence. Twelve of the country’s foremost animal welfare organisations have joined forces to support the #VoteforAnimals campaign spearheaded by Eurogroup for Animals. With its 10-point action plan, the campaign aims to motivate candidates and political parties to commit to animal welfare.
Context
Interest and concern for animal protection issues are rising, prompting a demand for political involvement. The #VoteforAnimals campaign provides a platform created to address this need – voteforanimals.it – where political parties and candidates can express their commitment by endorsing the program, and citizens can verify who has actually pledged support for the cause.
The 10 program points
At the core of the #VoteforAnimals campaign are ten key program points, offering a clear roadmap towards a more ethical and responsible approach to animal politics. These points include:
- Ending cage use in farming: This initiative aims to phase out the use of cages in farming, aligning with the European Citizens’ Initiative “End The Cage Age” and the initial commitments from the EU Commission. The goal is to enhance animal welfare through more ethical farming practices.
- Reforming European animal welfare legislation: This point commits to overhauling European animal welfare laws, setting high standards and making specific improvements to the treatment of all farm animals, ensuring their lives are more dignified.
- Banning long-distance animal transport for breeding and slaughter: The proposal seeks to prohibit the long-distance transport of animals for breeding and slaughter, including specific measures to ban the transport of pregnant and unweaned animals and to halt the export of live animals to non-EU countries, safeguarding their welfare.
- Promoting a plant-based diet: This involves advocating for a European food policy that encourages a shift towards plant-based diets, aiming to reduce consumption of animal products and support the production of plant-based and cell-cultured foods, thereby lessening environmental impact.
- Revising the Common Agricultural Policy and supporting farm conversion: This initiative focuses on revising the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), introducing legal and financial tools to help livestock farms transition to more sustainable practices, such as eliminating cages and reducing livestock numbers.
- Advocating for alternatives to animal testing: This goal is to promote the prohibition of all cosmetic testing on animals, endorsing non-animal testing alternatives per the European Citizens’ Initiative “Save Cruelty-Free Cosmetics”.
- Protecting wildlife and supporting wildlife recovery centres: This point proposes creating a European “positive list” to combat the trade and possession of exotic animals, drawing inspiration from existing models in Italy and other Member States to prevent illegal wildlife trade.
- Prohibiting fur production and trade: The initiative aims to extend the ban on breeding animals for fur, already in place in some Member States, across Europe and abolish the trade in fur products, promoting an ethical and sustainable fashion industry.
- Addressing stray and abandoned dogs and cats: It proposes introducing a European policy to tackle the issues of stray and abandoned dogs and cats, tightening penalties and developing effective strategies for enforcing existing laws to protect these animals better.
- Establishing an animal protection delegation for the Health and Food Safety Commissioner: This initiative supports assigning a specific mandate for animal protection to the Commissioner for Health and Food Safety and also backs the creation of a dedicated commission within the European Parliament.
The #VoteforAnimals campaign, with its ambitious 10-point plan, marks a turning point in the pursuit of animal protection in Italy and Europe. The initiative aims to position animal welfare at the forefront of European policies through the dedicated efforts of twelve leading organisations and the backing of the Eurogroup for Animals.
The active involvement of citizens, political parties, and candidates, coupled with a genuine commitment to the animal cause, offers real hope for forging a more just and sustainable society.
The objective is clear: to ensure animals’ voices are heard in the halls of power and to secure a life free from suffering and exploitation for them.
This collective effort by these twelve organisations, together with support from both the online community and local movements, highlights the urgency and strength of this campaign. It is a pivotal moment for animal protection in Europe, and #VoteforAnimals is a critical step toward a future where respect for all forms of life is standard practice.
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