Thomas Schröder, President of the German Animal Welfare Federation, comments on the agreement between the CDU, CSU and SPD and the coalition agreement presented today:
“The new coalition has promised to deliver. However, from what we have read so far, the promises in the coalition agreement on animal welfare - apart from minimal improvements - are too thin. Much remains vague, is weakly formulated or leaves too much leeway. For example, although money is to be made available for the urgently needed conversion of agricultural animal husbandry, it has not yet been clarified where the money is to come from. Video surveillance at slaughterhouses is only to be examined and the planned regulations on the online trade in animals contain too many exceptions.
The commitment to investing in practical animal welfare is to be expressly acknowledged. The fact that animal shelters have been burdened with more and more social tasks has pushed many to their absolute limits. Animal shelters are part of the critical infrastructure and are therefore part of public services. The federal government therefore has a special responsibility to help and cannot shirk this responsibility due to the national objective of animal welfare. It needs at least the 80 million euros earmarked in the negotiators' working group papers.
Other pressing animal welfare issues, on the other hand, have so far played no role for the CDU/CSU and SPD and have not even made it into the coalition agreement - such as compulsory castration for outdoor cats from private households, compulsory identification and registration of dogs and cats, a ban on animal transportation to third countries outside Europe and the continuation of the reduction strategy for animal testing begun in the last legislature. It remains unclear whether the important office of the Federal Animal Welfare Commissioner will be retained.
It will now be a feat of strength to develop a dynamic towards more animal protection. This applies to agriculture, but also to research, pets and wild animals. We will quickly start talks with the responsible ministry to implement the measures. No time must be lost.”
