The European Commission announced on Friday that it would look into cage farming for animals after a citizens' initiative collected nearly 1.4 million signatures calling for an end to an "
inhumane
"
practice
.
The initiative, supported by the actress and activist Pamela Anderson as well as by the ecologist MEP Yannick Jadot, calls in particular for the prohibition of cages for laying hens, rabbits, ducks and geese but also farrowing cages for sows or individual pens for calves.
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The European Commission said it "will
meet with the organizers to discuss the initiative in detail,
" in a statement.
"
A public hearing will then be organized by the European Parliament
".
However, this procedure is not binding.
The Commission specifies that it will indeed be able to “
propose legislation, take other non-legislative measures or not act at all
”.
"
In the European Union, hundreds of millions of farm animals are locked in cages for most of their lives, which is the cause of great suffering
", pleads the petition launched in September 2018 by more than 170 animal, environmental and European consumer organizations.
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The text had to collect more than a million signatures in at least seven countries of the Union to be taken into account in Brussels.
The initiative had a particularly strong echo in Germany and the Netherlands, two countries which together gathered almost half of the support for the initiative.
