We already know that Europe’s citizens want to see an end to caged farming, with 1.4 million adding their signatures to the ‘End the Cage Age’ ECI. We also know that in 2021, the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling for a ban. Now, just ahead of the European Commission’s release of its Work Programme for 2026, it seems that more than 30 French MPs – most of whom are on the right or center of the political spectrum – feel the same way.
A proposal for a European resolution to end caged farming for laying hens was submitted on Friday by MP Josiane Corneloup from France’s Les Républicains party. With 32 co-signatories from 8 French political groups, the proposal asks that:
The resolution proposal makes reference to the broken promise of the European Commission to submit a legislative proposal by the end of 2023 to ban the caged farming of laying hens and other farm animals, as asked by 2021’s ECI, the fourth most supported initiative since the creation of this democratic mechanism. “This situation raises questions about compliance with commitments made to European citizens and undermines the credibility of the European democratic process,” the proposal states.
The proposal also raises unfair competition for cage-free farmers: “The absence of European harmonization of the ban on cage farming of laying hens creates a distortion of competition particularly harmful to farmers who have made significant investments to modernize their facilities toward cage-free systems.”
“Hens unable to spread their wings or engage in comfort behaviours; mother pigs confined in cages so narrow that they are unable to turn around; rabbits standing on wire mesh in barren cages; calves isolated from their mothers and caged soon after birth – this is the current, abysmal state of European farming,” says Gabriela Kubíková, Legislative Advocacy Manager at The European Institute of Animal Law & Policy. “Now, under the new Work Programme, the Commission has a chance to pick up the thread and propose a legislative ban on cage farming – a measure that responds to both scientific recommendations and the expectations of citizens in the EU.”
The co-signatories of the resolution proposal are from Les Républicains (which is affiliated with EPP), Rassemblement National (PfE), Renaissance (Renew), MODEM (Renew), Horizons (Renew), Parti Socialiste (S&D), Les Ecologistes (Greens), and LIOT.
A scientific opinion published in October by the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety (ANSES) was partly informed by the research work of Anatole Poinsot, our Legal Advisor, and his co-authors, Eugénie Duval and Benjamin Lecorps.
The European Commission’s Work Programme for 2027 is out today – and it contains no mention of the promise to revise standards for laying hens, broiler chickens, and pigs.
The European Commission’s Vision 2040 for Fisheries and Aquaculture is out, and we’re happy to see a mention of animal welfare. The text says the Commission will “further develop the EU framework for the welfare of farmed aquatic animals across all stages of production, building on existing good husbandry practices, guidance and scientific knowledge.”
