Animal-welfare issues under international discussion

European Commission support for the OIE global conference on animal welfare was announced on June 16th 2003. The EC aims to promote the harmonisation of international standards in the field of animal welfare. The February 2004 conference will bring together stakeholders (government authorities, scientists, the private sector, non-profit organisations) from around the world to support the OIE in its animal-welfare activities and to assess how they could contribute most effectively. Comment: Support for this conference forms part of the EU's efforts to promote an international regulatory framework for animal welfare base on the EU's own standards. The establishment of such a framework and the associated verification systems that this would require could come to constitute important new barriers to ACP exports of livestock products. This would in part be due to the establishment of substantial new aid programmes under the EU's rural development policy to assist EU farmers in meeting the costs of the new food-safety and animal-welfare standards (see accompanying section 'The Commission calls for no lame compromises'). ACP suppliers are unlikely to benefit from such public assistance and so would have to carry the whole costs of any new animal-welfare standards from the sale price of their product.European Commission support for the OIE global conference on animal welfare was..