Farm Animal Welfare in the European Union – a critical analysis

This thesis examines the causes behind why England and Sweden, as
European Union (EU) Member States that share a higher concern for animal
welfare, suffer similar financial drawbacks and a decrease of their farmers’
competitive strength, in spite of their fundamentally different regulatory
approaches to transposing EU law. This complex situation is investigated by
tracing the issue to its origin: the inherent tension stemming from the dual
classification of the animals in EU primary law as both sentient beings and
tradable goods.
Farm animal welfare is regulated by minimum harmonising EU Directives,
which permit Member States to implement stricter domestic regulatory
standards. This thesis argues that these stricter standards, while being
zoocentrically important in terms of enabling a higher level of farm animal
welfare, also have a substantial negative economic impact upon the affected
farmers, due to the higher input costs. The issue arising is that minimum
Directives effectively negate the competitive strength of the farmers in
‘stricter’ Member States, as their domestic produce competes directly
against imported products from Member States whose national legislation is
closer to the minimum standard established by the EU Directives.
This thesis critiques this situation as untenable and submits that the farmers’
competitive strength in stricter Member States can be improved by a shift in
consumer purchasing behaviour, achieved by a programme that raises
public awareness. The research outcome is a recommendation of the
introduction of an EU-wide farm animal welfare labelling policy, one that
would allow consumers to distinguish high-welfare products from low-welfare
ones, where the elevated price commanded by the former would offset the
higher costs incurred in their production. The benefits of this solution are that
it facilitates increased competitiveness within the EU’s internal market, while
maintaining and promoting higher farm animal welfare standards.