The European Commission has responded positively to the European Citizen's Initiative (ECI) that collected 1.4 million signatures within one year from supporters in 28 Member States, being the first successful ECI on farm animals. The European Commission committed to propose to phase out and prohibit the use of cages for laying hens, sows, calves, rabbits, pullets, broiler breeders, layer breeders, quail, geese, and ducks. The proposal is expected by the end of 2023 and will be part of...

In October 2019, the European Commission has designated a second Reference Centre dedicated to the welfare of poultry and other small farmed animals (Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/1685). The European Union Reference Centre for Animal Welfare for Poultry and other small farmed animals (EURCAW-Poultry-SFA) aims at improving the enforcement of the EU legislation applicable to those animals, such as laying hens, chickens for meat production, and other small farmed animals, including...

The European Reference Centre for Animal Welfare for Poultry and other small farmed animals (EURCAW-Poultry-SFA) has been launched on February 1st 2020. This Centre is composed of Anses (France, coordinator), IRTA (Spain, deputy), IZSLER (Italy) and Aarhus University (Denmark). EURCAW-Poultry-SFA was designated by the European Union on October 4 2019  through Regulation (EU) 2019/1685, in accordance with Articles 95 and 96 of Regulation (EU) 2017/625,  to...