German animal welfare label risks distorting EU market, critics say

The German cabinet approved Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir’s bill for a mandatory animal welfare label on Wednesday (12 October), but the opposition and farming associations warn of inconsistencies within the EU single market.

Read the original German story here.

In a public statement after the cabinet meeting, Germany’s green agriculture minister welcomed the agreement as an “important step towards sustainable animal husbandry”, saying that, with the new label for animal products, consumers would soon have “a real and reliable choice for more animal welfare.”

Özdemir first presented the bill’s key points in June, which includes a labelling obligation which will apply firstly only to unprocessed pork, then gradually extend to all animal products.

If adopted, the new rules would force products to disclose under which conditions animals were farmed to produce the product.

Labels would then indicate one of five levels, from indoor husbandry without outdoor access to free-range husbandry, with organic production as a separate category.

Possible EU market distortion

However, the new mandatory livestock label will only be mandatory for products emanating from animal husbandry in Germany, with labelling on imports from other EU countries remaining voluntary, at least for the time being.

Here, opposition parties and farmers see a risk of market distortion.

For example, products from factory farms in other EU countries could end up on German supermarket shelves without any label, while an equivalent product from German production would be obliged to carry a label indicating one of the lowest levels of animal welfare.

In a motion introduced at the end of September, the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag demanded the animal welfare label also apply to food from other EU member states and third countries “to ensure a level playing field” and “strengthen regional production”.

“This husbandry labelling has clear weaknesses and gaps that not only fail to achieve the intended effect but in some cases even counteract it,” Joachim Rukwied, President of the German Farmers’ Association added in a statement.

The farmers’ association also pointed out that sow husbandry – which involves raising pregnant and lactating dams and their piglets – remains excluded from the bill for the time being.

“This means that piglets castrated without anaesthesia can continue to be imported from abroad into the domestic market and would still receive the animal welfare label,” Rukwied warned.

Brussels should present origin labelling

To counteract market disadvantages, the Farmers’ Association has long been calling for the new label to be combined with the introduction of mandatory origin labelling for animal products to make it more transparent in which country the animals were raised.

Just like the animal welfare label, the origin label is also featured in the coalition agreement between the ruling Social Democrats, the Greens and the liberal FDP.

However, the agriculture ministry is instead pursuing the approach of pushing for the introduction of an EU-wide origin label in Brussels.

A national approach would be both impractical due to cross-border supply chains and legally difficult on a common EU market, the ministry’s State Secretary Silvia Bender argued at a panel discussion earlier this year.

The European Court of Justice ruled at the end of 2020 that national mandatory origin labelling measures are only permissible if they are justified, for example, to protect public health or to prevent food fraud.

At the end of the year, the European Commission intends to present a draft law on the EU-wide mandatory labelling of food packaging, which could include an extension of the mandatory labelling of products.

Austria tries to force-feed origin label to EU farm ministers

While Austrian Agriculture Minister Elisabeth Köstinger was keen to put the question of a mandatory origin label on the table of this week’s informal ministerial meeting in Strasbourg, participants said it did not make the cut.

Fine-tuning in the Bundestag

Despite the concerns, the Farmers’ Association welcomed the fact that there will soon be a binding animal welfare label in Germany.

The Federation of the Organic Food Industry BÖLW also praised the cabinet’s decision, saying it was a “good day for consumers” and stressed that the step was also “important for farmers”.

The association particularly welcomed the fact that meat from organic farms is to be labelled in a separate category.

Animal rights activists, meanwhile, warned that the bill still needed some tightening.

In a statement, Anne Hamester, PROVIEH’s capital representative, appealed to the two houses of parliament, the Bundesrat and the Bundestag, to “speak out in favour of a restructuring of the five levels applied to animal husbandry”.

She also called for tightening the criteria farmers need to fulfil to achieve the highest husbandry levels.

The necessary follow-up steps like the expansion to other product groups would have to be initiated quickly, she added.

Meanwhile, animal welfare organisation Vier Pfoten said the bill “fails in its central task of providing transparent information on the keeping of animals” as it considers the designation of the different forms of husbandry to be misleading in parts.

German minister presents plans for mandatory animal welfare label

Every product produced and sold in Germany will soon have to indicate the conditions under which animals were kept, according to plans presented by German Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir on Tuesday (7 June). EURACTIV Germany reports.

[Edited by Nathalie Weatherald]

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