EU

The European Parliament vote arrives at large majority against Commission's rhetoric on livestock farming

The European Parliament voted as a large majority (367 votes in favour - 245 against) against any enlargement of scope of the Industrial Emissions Directive (IED) covering livestock farms. Besides, as the clear message sent to the European Commission, the Parliament recognised the IED is an ill-suited legislative instrument that simply ignores basic realities of the livestock sector.

Posted on Jul 13 ,00:10

Copa and Cogeca have been exposing for months the problems and difficulties that the application of the Commission's proposal would cause on the ground;  unbearable administrative and economic costs, risk of liquidation or excessive concentration, and of shifts of production toward non-EU countries.

Whilst the Council failed to recognise this in its general approach and MEPs sent a clear message of support to the farming sector.  MEPs voted to maintain the scope of application for rearing activities for pigs and poultry (2,000 pigs and 40,000 places) and rejected the inclusion of cattle or mixed farms.

Nevertheless, MEPs have decided to retain certain provisions that could prove problematic in practice. The aggregation rule especially, asks Member States to adopt measures to consider two or more installations located close to each other run by or under the control of the same operator as one. In this case, the Council was more accurate when stating that competent authorities “may consider” these installations as one. In trialogue, negotiators should make sure that this rule does not create more harm than the good it is intended to protect and, especially, that it does not enlarge the scope of application.

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