Today, the Commission adopted the creation of an expert group on animal welfare to be called the Platform on Animal Welfare. Vytenis Andriukaitis, Commissioner in charge of Health and Food Safety, had outlined this Platform in the Agriculture and Fisheries Council on 14 November 2016: "The aim of the platform will be to encourage dialogue between different stakeholders on animal welfare issues (…); it should focus on a better application of EU legislation on animal welfare, the promotion of the very high animal welfare standards and the use of the Platform as a facilitator for the development and use of voluntary commitments by business operators".

The Platform on Animal welfare will bring together all relevant actors in relation to animal welfare: business and professional organisations, organisations from civil society, independent experts from academic and research institutes, EU and European Economic Area Member States, the European Food Safety Authorities and relevant international intergovernmental organisations like the World Organisation for Animal Health.

In the coming weeks, the Commission will publish the call for application for the selection of the members of the Platform which will gather a maximum of 75 participants. The first meeting of the Platform will be held during the Maltese Presidency.

Background:

In 2015 the "Eurobarometer on attitudes of European towards animal welfare" showed that EU citizens consider animal welfare to be a very important issue and that the EU has a role to play in cooperation with the Member States and business operators.

The Commission held a first stakeholders' dialogue on animal welfare on 23-24 February 2016 with all main stakeholders and Member States. There was a broad consensus that an enhanced stakeholder dialogue would bring added value at EU level. Based on this wide-ranged support by the Member States, the Commission continued with the operational procedure for the establishment of the Platform.