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Time to listen to citizens and trust technology when it comes to slaughter

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The conversation on slaughter without stunning is bouncing around Europe for different reasons: animal welfare, religion, economy. The practice means killing animals while still fully conscious and it is used in some religious traditions, such as the Jewish and Muslim ones, to produce respectively kosher and halal meat, writes Reineke Hameleers.

The Polish parliament and senate are voting on the Five for animals bill, which, among other measures, includes a restriction on the possibility of ritual slaughter. Jewish communities and politicians across Europe are calling on Polish authorities to scrap the ban on kosher meat exports (Poland is one of the biggest European exporters of kosher meat).

The request though doesn’t take into account what EU Citizens, Polish included, have just expressed in the opinion poll Eurogroup for Animals recently released. The majority clearly supports higher animal welfare standards declaring that: it should be mandatory to make animals unconscious before they are slaughtered (89%); countries should be able to adopt additional measures that ensure higher animal welfare standards (92%); the EU should require all animals to be stunned before being slaughtered, even for religious reasons (87%); the EU should prioritise funding for alternative practices for slaughtering animals in humane ways that are also accepted by religious groups (80%).

While the results unequivocally show the civil society position against slaughter without stunning, this should not be interpreted as a threat to religious freedom, as some try to picture it. It represents the level of attention and care Europeans have towards animals, which is also enshrined in the EU Treaty defining animals as sentient beings.

The EU law says that all animals must be made unconscious before being killed, with exceptions in the context of some religious practices. Several countries like Slovenia, Finland, Denmark, Sweden and two regions of Belgium (Flanders and Wallonia) adopted stricter rules with no exceptions to the mandatory stunning of animals before slaughter.

In Flanders, as well as in Wallonia, the parliament adopted the law almost unanimously (0 votes against, only a few abstentions). The law was the result of a long process of democratic decision making which included hearings with the religious communities, and received cross-party support. It is key to understand that the ban refers to slaughter without stunning and it is not a ban on religious slaughter.

These rules aim at ensuring higher welfare for animals being slaughtered in the context of religious rites. Indeed the European Food Safety Authority concluded that serious welfare problems are highly likely to occur after the throat cut, since the animal - still conscious - can feel anxiety, pain and distress. Also, the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) acknowledged that “particular methods of slaughter prescribed by religious rites that are carried out without pre-stunning are not tantamount, in terms of serving a high level of animal welfare at the time of killing”.

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Nowadays reversible stunning allows for the protection of animals being slaughtered in the context of religious rites without interfering with the rites per se. It causes unconsciousness through electronarcosis, so the animals are still alive when their throat is cut.

Acceptance of stunning methods is increasing among religious communities in Malaysia, India, Middle- East, Turkey, Germany, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

Given what citizens expressed in the opinion poll, and the possibilities offered by technology, European Member States should be able to adopt additional measures that ensure higher animal welfare standards, like the Belgian region of Flanders which introduced such a measure in 2017 and is now threatened to have it reversed by the CJEU.

It’s time for our leaders to base their decisions on sound science, unequivocal case law, accepted alternatives to slaughter without stunning, and strong democratic, moral values. It’s time to pave the way to real progress in the EU instead of turning the clock backwards.

The opinions expresed in the above article are those of the author alone, and do not reflect any opinions on the part of EU Reporter.

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EU Reporter publishes articles from a variety of outside sources which express a wide range of viewpoints. The positions taken in these articles are not necessarily those of EU Reporter.

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