New EU animal disease law combines vigilance with sensitivity to antimicrobial resistance
The European Parliament, EU Council of Ministers and European Commission have agreed the substance of the legislation, clearing the way for formal agreement, maybe this year.
The agreed rules clarify the responsibilities of farmers, traders, and animal professionals, including veterinarians, to ensure the good health of their animals and avoid introducing or spreading diseases. For instance vets would be legally obliged to raise awareness of the interaction between animal health and welfare and human health and better inform owners about boosting resistance to treatments, including antimicrobials.
Under the regulation, all EU livestock farmers and traders would have to apply good animal husbandry and a prudent, responsible use of veterinary medicines. "This would make it considerably more difficult to use antimicrobials as an ‘umbrella’ to cover bad animal husbandry in the future," said Swedish liberal MEP Marit Paulsen.
Under the deal, the three EU institutions released a joint statement calling on EU member states "to collect relevant, comparable and sufficiently detailed data on the actual use of antimicrobial medicinal products in animals and to send such data to the Commission", for regular publication.
Furthermore, to fight potentially dangerous emerging diseases, the law will empower the Commission to take urgent measures immediately, rather than waiting for EU council approval.
The legislation would also authorise the creation of an updated list of potentially dangerous diseases, such as African swine fever, avian influenza or foot-and-mouth disease, working with European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) experts, farmers’ organisations, veterinary associations, and animal welfare movements. These bodies would also create contingency plans to fight outbreaks. All such disease control measures will have to take animal welfare into account and spare animals avoidable pain, distress or suffering, said the agreed text, which could next be debated by the parliament’s agriculture committee on June 17.
EU health and food safety commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis said: "This agreement paves the way for a more efficient and streamlined system to combat transmissible animal diseases, like foot-and-mouth, bluetongue, avian influenza, or newly emerging diseases."
