Paving the abbatoire with good intentions

Brussels has adopted a proposal to make the end of the line for farm animals as humane as possible.
This would require slaughterhouses everywhere in the EU to mind how they kill. The European Commission said the rules would improve meat quality, as well as “lead to better animal protection”.

Every year, nearly 360 million pigs, sheep, goats and cattle and several billion turkeys and chickens are killed in the EU to be eaten. Welfare and safety regulations governing how this may be done date from 1993.

Commission experts want to redefine the parameters for using electricity or gas to render animals unconscious. The proposal does not seek to ban the most-used methods of stunning, but rules on staff training and certification would become stricter. EU governments will also have to help reinforce inspections — all this coming up for debate later this year.

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