Belgium | Brussels | Live Transports by Sea: Petition to the EU Parliament

Our lawyer, Manuela Giacomini, gave a speech at the meeting of the Committee on Petitions (PETI) of the EU parliament regarding the violations during sea transports of live animals which are subject of our petitions No. 0629 /2016 and No. 1231/2017. The issue of live exports by road was already discussed in 2018, after our petition on the systemic infringements during live transports to EU third countries was accepted by the committee. In the light of the Commission´s audits, PETI put our petitions on the agenda again and asked the EU Commission to report on their actions. As a result of our original petition topic, the road transport of animals to Turkey, the representative of the Commission reported that 13 member states implemented actions to stop long distance transports to Turkey when the temperatures reached 30° degrees last summer.

The representative of the EU Commission confirmed short comings related to sea transports. This became evident during their audits. Therefore, the Commission started to implement actions. One of them is the involvement of the European Maritime Safety Authority (EMSA) to approve the vessels. The Commission expects a harmonization of the standards of the vessels, and higher standards of the vessels in general from this collaboration with EMSA. Moreover, in order to ensure fair competition, the vessels will not be able to try to get approval from certain member states because the authorities will be able to verify the results of all inspections performed by any member state on such vessels and the details linked to them.

We are very pleased that we achieved to turn animal transports by sea into a high priority topic for the EU Commission. With increasing the standards the costs for sea transports will rise, and hopefully, live transports will become less profitable and decrease in the future. Moreover, we are glad that all our petitions that have been represented by our lawyer are still open and will continue to be discussed by the Commission and the MEPs. We will keep you updated on our progress in the future.  

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3. Click on the buttons below to support the follwing petitions: 

Export of living animals from the EU to third countries 
Violations of the Regulation 1/2005 on the protection of animals during transport

*Please note: You must hold the nationality of an EU Member State, and you need to be logged into your account to support a petition.