Between symbolism and effectiveness, animal sentience in European constitutionalism – Official Weblog of UNIO – Cyber Tech

(on the EU-Mercosur Free Commerce settlement)

Ana Luísa Azevedo Lopes (grasp’s scholar in European Union Regulation on the College of Regulation of the College of Minho)

1. Introduction

The safety of animal welfare has develop into an more and more seen aspect of European Union (“EU”) motion, notably in coverage areas historically dominated by financial issues. The signing in January 2026 of the EU–Mercosur Free Commerce Settlement (“EMTA”)[1] has made this a very salient challenge for animal rights organisations and European residents, serving as a recent instance of how animal welfare is addressed each internally, and within the Union’s exterior motion. Late in February 2026, President Ursula Von der Leyen introduced that the Fee is shifting ahead with the provisional implementation of the settlement, though she acknowledged that it might solely be totally concluded after consent from the European Parliament.[2] This choice makes the topic of this text much more well timed, as we will look at the potential results of such settlement on animal welfare issues throughout the EU.

That being stated, while EU laws has lengthy addressed animal welfare in sectors reminiscent of agriculture, transport, and slaughter, the introduction of Article 13 Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (“TFEU”) marked a major symbolic improvement on the stage of EU major legislation, formally recognising animals as sentient beings.^[3] Regardless of this recognition, the authorized standing and sensible relevance of Article 13 TFEU stay unsure. The supply doesn’t set up concrete obligations or enforceable rights however somewhat requires that animal welfare be taken into consideration within the definition and implementation of sure Union insurance policies. This raises a elementary query as to how animal welfare operates inside the EU authorized order when it comes into stress with different targets pursued by the Union, notably these linked to financial integration and commerce.^[4]

This paper approaches Article 13 TFEU via the lens of normative battle, analyzing how animal welfare is balanced in opposition to competing coverage targets inside the EU authorized framework. Explicit consideration is paid to the case legislation of the Courtroom of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”), specializing in the Zuchtvieh-Export judgment (C-424/13),^[5] which presents a revealing illustration of the boundaries attributed to animal welfare issues in contexts involving cross-border financial exercise and commerce with third nations. The selection of this judgment is justified by its clear publicity of the strain between the safety of animals and the logic of market integration. As well as, the evaluation incorporates the Centraal Israëlitisch Consistorie van België judgment (C-336/19),^[6] which gives a crucial perspective on the balancing of animal welfare in opposition to elementary rights, particularly the liberty of faith. This case is crucial to the research, because it demonstrates the Courtroom’s evolving curiosity, whereas concurrently exposing the structural challenges of integrating Article 13 TFEU into the Union’s advanced hierarchy of values.

This evaluation serves to spotlight the broader structural challenges confronted by Article 13 TFEU when animal welfare issues intersect with the Union’s business and strategic pursuits.

2. The popularity of animal welfare in EU major legislation

The popularity of animals as “sentient beings” constitutes a major rupture with the historically anthropocentric view of legislation, through which animals have been regarded primarily as financial belongings or elements of manufacturing.

The primary shift emerged with Protocol No. 10 annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam (1997), which launched for the primary time an obligation for the Union and the Member States to pay full regard to the welfare necessities of animals when formulating insurance policies on agriculture, transport, the inner market, and analysis. Though protocols annexed to the Treaties possess the identical authorized worth, as stated in Article 51 of the Treaty on the European Union (“TEU”), constituting major legislation, their positioning outdoors the principle physique of the Treaties has been argued to contribute to their decreased visibility and restricted normative affect in apply. On this sense, regardless of representing an essential authorized recognition of animal welfare, it wasn’t till the Treaty of Lisbon (2009) that this challenge gained a highlight place, as outlined in Article 13 of the TFEU.^[7]

This text serves as a cross-cutting precept, whose major perform is to combine animal welfare considerations into insurance policies that pursue various targets. The creation of this text represents a milestone within the evolution of EU legislation relating to animal safety. By clearly recognising animals as “sentient beings”, EU major legislation strikes away from a strictly instrumental conception of animal safety, historically related to financial effectivity or product high quality.^[8]

This strategy of recognising the animals’ capability to really feel is a part of a broader motion towards affirming moral values inside the Union’s authorized order, in step with the rising significance attributed to environmental safety, public well being, and elementary rights. With Article 13 TFEU recognising animals as “sentient beings”, the EU legally acknowledges that animals have the capability to really feel ache, struggling, and pleasure.^[9] It features as a horizontal clause that mandates animal welfare be thought of transversally throughout varied areas of Union competence, specifically within the definition and implementation of insurance policies on agriculture, transport, the inner market, and analysis.^[10]

This transversality confers a major authorized and political character upon Article 13 TFEU, insofar because it obliges European legislators and decision-makers to think about animal welfare inside the decision-making course of. Article 13 TFEU has been generally characterised as a horizontal clause or integration precept, corresponding to different value-oriented provisions contained in Articles 8 to 12 TFEU. Reasonably than establishing autonomous regulatory obligations, such provisions function as interpretative and coordination mechanisms designed to make sure that sure moral and social values are systematically built-in into the formulation and implementation of Union insurance policies. On this sense, Article 13 TFEU may be understood as a programmatic norm whose authorized relevance materialises primarily via legislative improvement and judicial interpretations. Its normative drive, due to this fact, is dependent upon the balancing train carried out between animal welfare and different competing Union targets, notably these linked to financial integration and market functioning.^[11]

Article 13 TFEU have to be interpreted in mild of the overarching ideas of EU legislation, notably the precept of consistency and the precept of proportionality.^[12] As a provision of major legislation, it features as a compulsory parameter for the legality of Union acts. This suggests that the safety of animals, as sentient beings, has been built-in into the Union’s “constitutional” core, requiring a scientific dialogue with different foundational targets, such because the promotion of the Inside Market and the Widespread Agricultural Coverage. Consequently, any legislative or administrative measure that impacts animal welfare should endure a rigorous balancing check. On this context, the precept of honest cooperation additionally performs a job, because it obliges each the Union and Member States to make sure that the effectiveness of Article 13 TFEU isn’t undermined by conflicting secondary laws or exterior commerce commitments that ignore the moral boundaries established by the treaties.^[13]

Nonetheless, it is very important underline that Article 13 TFEU doesn’t set up concrete materials obligations, nor does it create instantly enforceable subjective rights (rights with direct impact). Its major perform is advisory and guiding, conditioning the decision-making course of with out imposing particular outcomes. In different phrases, this obligation of care isn’t equal to an obligation of consequence, remaining largely depending on political decisions and proportionality assessments. Nonetheless, the “highlight place” granted by the Treaty of Lisbon doesn’t simply change the standing of the animal, it basically recalibrates the hierarchy of European values, forcing a transfer away from anthropocentric dominance towards a extra built-in, moral authorized order.^[14]

3. The structural limits of Article 13 TFEU and its place inside the EU authorized order

Though Article 13 TFEU has elevated animal welfare to the standing of major legislation, its effectiveness faces vital obstacles that restrict its scope as a norm of absolute safety.

One of many major weaknesses of this Article lies in its lack of direct impact. The supply isn’t sufficiently clear, exact, or unconditional to be invoked autonomously by people earlier than nationwide or European courts. Consequently, its authorized affect is dependent upon the mediation of the Union legislator and the interpretation offered by the CJEU. Thus, Article 13 TFEU features merely as an interpretative support, an element to be thought of in a call, somewhat than a authorized foundation able to resulting in a beneficial ruling for animal welfare.

Moreover, Article 13 TFEU features a safeguard clause requiring respect for the “spiritual rites, cultural traditions and regional heritage” of Member States. This provision creates an implicit hierarchy the place animal welfare, regardless of being recognised, yields to freedom of faith – Article 10 of the Constitution of Basic Rights of the European Union (“Constitution”) –, or the cultural identification of the States. This considerably weakens the scope of the norm by introducing a broad exception that enables animal welfare to be relativised within the title of different values.^[15]

Take for example, case C-336/19, Centraal Israëlitisch Consistorie van Bergië and Others, which addressed the compatibility between nationwide laws requiring prior gorgeous of animals earlier than slaughter and the safety of freedom of faith. On this judgment, the Courtroom recognised that animal welfare constitutes a legit goal of basic curiosity inside the EU, supported by Article 13 TFEU. Nonetheless, it additionally held that such safety have to be balanced in opposition to the elemental proper to freedom of faith based mostly in Article 10 of the Constitution.

The courtroom finally concluded that Member States might impose necessary gorgeous necessities offered that such measures respect the precept of proportionality and don’t unduly prohibit spiritual practices. This choice illustrates the structural place of animal welfare inside the Union authorized order: though recognised as a constitutional worth, it operates inside a balancing framework and doesn’t robotically prevail over different elementary rights.^[16]

These limitations are mirrored within the place occupied by animal welfare inside the EU’s hierarchy of values. Though recognised as a worth, animal welfare typically seems subordinated to financial targets, the functioning of the inner market, and competitiveness. This subordination turns into notably evident in conditions of battle between Union insurance policies, the place Article 13 TFEU features extra as a balancing precept than as a real normative restrict.

4. Article 13 TFEU within the case legislation of the Courtroom of Justice of the European Union

The case legislation of the CJEU has been consolidating an interpretation of Article 13 TFEU which, regardless of its seemingly restrictive nature as a framework provision, reveals an rising hermeneutic drive. The Courtroom recognises animal welfare as a legit and cross-cutting curiosity of the Union, but its sensible software oscillates between contextual integration and the project of a decisive position in resolving advanced disputes.

Taken collectively, the case legislation of the CJEU reveals a constant interpretative sample through which animal welfare is recognised as a legit Union worth, however hardly ever operates as an overriding precept, as a substitute being built-in via proportionality-based balancing workouts involving competing financial pursuits, coverage targets, and elementary rights.

The ambivalent nature of this strategy turns into notably evident when evaluating the Courtroom’s reasoning throughout completely different areas of Union motion. In case C-336/19, Centraal Israëlitisch Consistorie van België and Others, as talked about above, the Courtroom was known as upon to evaluate whether or not nationwide laws requiring prior gorgeous of animals earlier than slaughter was appropriate with the safety of freedom of faith. On this judgment, the Courtroom expressly acknowledged that the safety of animal welfare constitutes an goal of basic curiosity inside the Union’s authorized order and displays evolving moral requirements in European societies, as recognised by Article 13 TFEU.^[17] Nonetheless, the Courtroom concurrently emphasised that such safety have to be appropriate with the elemental proper to freedom of faith, assured by Article 10 of the Constitution. By accepting that Member States might impose gorgeous necessities topic to proportionality assessment, the Courtroom confirmed that animal welfare, regardless of its constitutional recognition, stays structurally positioned inside a framework of normative balancing somewhat than functioning as an absolute authorized constraint.^[18]

The Zuchtvieh-Export judgment (C-424/13) constitutes the paradigmatic instance of this ambivalent strategy within the area of financial exercise and exterior commerce. Known as upon to rule on the appliance of Regulation No. 1/2005 regarding the transport of dwell animals throughout long-distance journeys to 3rd nations, the Courtroom adopted an interpretation strongly influenced by the normative orientation of Article 13 TFEU.^[19] Departing from a merely programmatic understanding of the availability, the Courtroom established that Article 13 TFEU imposes a rigorous procedural obligation on nationwide authorities chargeable for authorising animal transport.

By ruling that animal welfare have to be assured from the place of departure to the ultimate vacation spot – together with places outdoors the EU territory –, the CJEU successfully prolonged the territorial attain of Union animal welfare requirements. In doing so, the Courtroom reworked the duty to pay “full regard” to animal welfare right into a prerequisite for the legality of administrative authorisation selections.^[20] The sensible consequence of this interpretation is that the export of dwell animals turns into conditional upon compliance with Union welfare requirements even in third nations, thereby reinforcing the moral dimension of inside market regulation.

Nonetheless, the choice didn’t elevate Article 13 TFEU to an autonomous authorized foundation able to independently figuring out the result of the dispute. As a substitute, the Courtroom preserved the structural precedence of market integration and business viability whereas concurrently requiring that financial operators reveal, via real looking and detailed journey planning (or journey log), that animal sentience will probably be adequately protected. Even whereas admitting limitations to animal safety for the sake of business viability, the Courtroom shifts the burden of proof: it’s as much as the financial operator to reveal that animal sentience will probably be revered.^[21]

When learn collectively, these judgments reveal that Article 13 TFEU features as a precept of normative integration and judicial filtering. It doesn’t stop the subordination of animal welfare to different coverage targets, notably these associated to the Widespread Agricultural Coverage and the Widespread Industrial Coverage. Nonetheless, it requires that any limitation on animal safety have to be objectively justified, proportionate, and appropriate with the moral commitments formally recognised inside the Union’s constitutional framework.

5. Animal welfare and EU commerce coverage: the EMTA as a case research

Article 13 TFEU represents a major improvement within the constitutional evolution of EU legislation, because it expressly recognises animals as sentient beings and imposes on the EU establishments and the Member States the duty to pay full regard to animal welfare necessities when formulating and implementing sure insurance policies. This recognition has typically been offered as a decisive step within the strategy of the “constitutionalisation” of animal safety inside the Union. Nonetheless, an evaluation of legislative apply and, particularly, of the EU’s exterior motion demonstrates that the effectiveness of this provision stays restricted, revealing a persistent stress between the safety of animal welfare and different targets thought to be priorities, such because the functioning of the inner market and the Widespread Industrial Coverage.^[22] The EMTA constitutes a paradigmatic instance of this stress and gives a helpful lens via which to evaluate whether or not Article 13 TFEU operates as a genuinely efficient norm or somewhat as a largely symbolic one.

The EMTA goals to ascertain one of many largest free commerce areas on the planet by progressively lowering tariffs and facilitating commerce flows between the 2 blocs. From the angle of the EU, the settlement is offered as an instrument designed to strengthen geopolitical partnerships, develop export alternatives for European industries, and improve financial competitiveness in a globalised market. Amongst its most important business results is the growth of entry to the EU marketplace for agricultural merchandise originating in Mercosur nations, notably beef, poultry, and different merchandise of animal origin. Whereas these developments might generate financial profit and improve shopper alternative inside the Union, they concurrently elevate advanced regulatory and moral considerations in relation to animal welfare.^[23]

The EU has progressively developed a complete regulatory framework governing animal welfare requirements relevant to its inside manufacturing programs, together with guidelines referring to farming circumstances,^[24] transport,^[25] and slaughter practices.^[26] These regulatory developments partly replicate the normative orientation established by Article 13 TFEU and reveal the rising integration of moral issues into Union agricultural and meals manufacturing insurance policies.^[27] Nonetheless, the EMTA introduces a possible regulatory asymmetry insofar because it permits elevated importation of animal-derived merchandise originating from manufacturing programs that will not function underneath requirements totally equal to these imposed to Union producers.

It needs to be thought of that the conclusion of the EMTA doesn’t robotically lead to a reducing of inside Union requirements. Merchandise getting into the European market stay topic to compliance with present EU sanitary and regulatory necessities. These mechanisms function as safeguards meant to stop the entry of merchandise that fail to satisfy minimal regulatory thresholds.^[28] Nonetheless, the effectiveness of those safeguards relies upon considerably on monitoring procedures, certification programs, and enforcement capability. Potential regulatory inconsistencies or failures in compliance management might finally give rise to disputes requiring judicial assessment earlier than the CJEU, thereby illustrating the oblique and reactive nature of present enforcement mechanisms.

Moreover, though the EMTA accommodates chapters devoted to sustainable improvement and establishes institutional mechanisms selling regulatory cooperation, trade of technical experience, and coverage dialogue between the events, these provisions stay largely framed inside soft-law constructions. The settlement doesn’t introduce binding conditionality mechanisms particularly designed to make sure compliance with excessive animal welfare requirements by third-country producers. Because of this, the normative affect of Article 13 TFEU inside the context of the Union’s exterior commerce coverage stays structurally restricted.^[29]

Current exploratory research and coverage analyses have sought to guage the potential affect of the EMTA on animal welfare outcomes. These research counsel that elevated demand for animal-derived merchandise might incentivise the growth of intensive livestock manufacturing programs inside Mercosur nations, doubtlessly leading to elevated animal struggling and related environmental impacts, together with deforestation and biodiversity loss. Though the empirical projections surrounding these impacts stay topic to ongoing educational coverage debates, they reinforce considerations relating to the capability of present commerce devices to successfully combine animal welfare issues into world provide chains.^[30]

The EMTA, due to this fact, illustrates the broader structural challenges confronted by Article 13 TFEU when animal welfare issues intersect with the Union’s Widespread Industrial Coverage, ruled primarily by Article 207 TFEU. Whereas animal welfare is formally recognised as a constitutional worth inside the Union authorized order, the structure of worldwide commerce coverage continues to be pushed primarily by financial and market-related objectives. Inside this framework, animal welfare issues are inclined to function as a secondary normative issue somewhat than decisive regulatory constraints. Consequently, the EMTA highlights the twin character of Article 13 TFEU inside the Union’s exterior motion. The supply contributes to shaping political discourse and regulatory expectations surrounding animal safety however lacks the binding enforcement mechanisms needed to make sure full compliance with worldwide commerce relations. Though the sustainable provision is a vital step, there is no such thing as a approach to implement EU requirements in third nations.

Criticism voiced by organisations reminiscent of Eurogroup for Animals emphasises that the settlement might have devastating impacts on hundreds of thousands of animals by encouraging the growth of intensive livestock farming in Mercosur nations, typically related to practices that might be illegal underneath EU legislation.^[31] Past the direct struggling inflicted on animals, there are vital oblique results, together with elevated deforestation and environmental degradation, which additional exacerbate the inconsistency between the values proclaimed by the European Union and its exterior motion. On this manner, the EU maintains excessive animal welfare requirements inside its personal territory whereas concurrently ending up accepting, via commerce, merchandise derived from manufacturing programs that undermine these very values, successfully externalising animal struggling past its borders.

Regardless of the constitutional recognition of animal sentience, the EU has been unable to make sure that this recognition produces tangible authorized penalties when confronted with different insurance policies thought to be strategic, such because the Inside Market and the Widespread Industrial Coverage. Animal welfare thus emerges as a subordinated worth, often invoked in authorized and political discourse however readily sacrificed when it conflicts with financial pursuits.^[32] On this sense, the EMTA reinforces the view that Article 13 TFEU oscillates between symbolism and restricted effectiveness, functioning extra as a guideline than as a real substantive constraint on the European Union’s conduct in worldwide commerce.^[33]

Nonetheless, it is very important be aware that the Union’s present legislative agenda seems to be testing a response to those asymmetries. The “Omnibus Package deal”, a part of the Farm to Fork technique, goals to revise EU animal welfare laws to align manufacturing requirements with the newest scientific proof and residents’ moral calls for. Within the context of exterior relations, this legislative package deal is especially related because it reopens the controversy on the appliance of reciprocity clauses (or mirror clauses). It seeks to make sure that merchandise imported from third nations, such because the Mercosur bloc, don’t undermine the sustainability and animal safety requirements imposed on European producers. It stays to be seen whether or not these legislative intentions will possess enough authorized power to beat the primacy of World Commerce Group free commerce guidelines, which have traditionally constrained the exterior effectiveness of Article 13 TFEU.^[34]

6. Conclusion

The evaluation developed all through this research permits for the conclusion that Article 13 TFEU constitutes a elementary axiological and symbolic milestone, elevating animal welfare to the standing of a transversal worth of the European Union and offering authorized recognition of animal sentience. Nonetheless, the transition of this “principle-norm” towards full authorized effectiveness stays faltering, notably when confronted with Union insurance policies endowed with consolidated normative and financial weight, such because the Widespread Agricultural Coverage and the Widespread Industrial Coverage.^[35]

Article 13 TFEU shouldn’t be seen as a provision devoid of relevance; but its present perform is predominantly guiding and subordinate. As demonstrated by the case legislation of the CJEU and, most flagrantly, by the negotiations of the EMTA, animal welfare tends to be sacrificed on the altar of worldwide competitiveness and commerce liberalisation. The settlement exposes a authorized incoherence: whereas the Union imposes excessive moral requirements on its inside producers, it tolerates the importation of merchandise from third nations that don’t observe equal necessities, leading to an undesirable “outsourcing of cruelty”.^[36]

This actuality raises crucial questions relating to the coherence of the European challenge and the precise standing of animal welfare inside the Union’s hierarchy of values. For Article 13 TFEU to stop being an train in constitutional rhetoric and develop into a real normative restrict on the EU’s actions, the adoption of equal commonplace necessities and strict conditionality mechanisms in exterior relations is crucial. And not using a strong integration that binds buying and selling companions to European moral requirements, Article 13 TFEU will stay, to a big extent, a symbolic affirmation of sentience, missing the crucial drive essential to form the motion of the EU as a worldwide actor dedicated to animal ethics.

[1] European Fee, “EU and Mercosur signal historic settlement creating one of many largest free commerce zones on the planet”, January 20, 2026, accessed February 16, 2026, https://ec.europa.eu/fee/presscorner/element/en/ac_26_163.

[2] Peggy Corlin and Vincenzo Genovese, “Von der Leyen to implement contentious Mercosur commerce deal regardless of MEPs’ authorized problem”, Euronews, 27 February 2026, https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2026/02/27/commission-to-implement-contentious-mercosur-trade-deal-despite-eu-parliament-opposition.

[3] Justine Coudron, “The affect of Article 13 TFEU on the free motion of animals and animal merchandise” (Grasp’s diss., Ghent College, 2023), 40–43.

[4] Émilie Delcher, “Introductory observations on animal welfare: an idea relevant to wild animals in European Union laws?”, trans. Heron Gordilho and Lyliam Botteau, Brazilian Journal of Animal Regulation, v. 17, no. 1 (2022): 1–19.

[5] Judgment CJEU Zuchtvieh-Export, 23 April 2015, Case C-424/13, ECLI:EU:C:2015:259, recital 2.

[6] Judgment CJEU Centraal Israëlitisch Consistorie van België, 17 December 2020, Case C-336/19, ECLI:EU:C:2020:1031, recitals 1-2.

[7] José Martinez and Cara von Nolting, “Overview: ‘animal welfare’ – a European idea”, Animal, v. 17 (2023): 3, doi: 10.1016/j.animal.2023.100839.

[8] Diane Ryland, “Taking inventory of Artwork. 13 TFEU in EU agriculture: studying Artwork. 13 as a complete,” European Papers, v. 8, no. 1 (2023): 192-196, doi: 10.15166/2499-8249/646.

[9] Heather Browning and Jonathan Birch, “Animal sentience”, Philosophy Compass, v. 17, no. 5 (2022): 1-2, doi: 10.1111/phc3.12822.

[10] Evangelia Psychogiopoulou, “The horizontal clauses of Arts 8-13 TFEU via the lens of the Courtroom of Justice”, European Papers, v. 7, no. 3 (2022): 1358-1363, doi: 10.15166/2499-8249/618.

[11] Evangelia Psychogiopoulou, “Unravelling the complexities of the horizontal clauses of Arts 8-13 TFEU: a proof of the particular part”, European Papers, v. 8, no. 1 (2023): 221-226, doi: 10.15166/2499-8249/647.

[12] Tor-Inge Harbo, “The perform of the proportionality precept in EU Regulation”, European Regulation Journal, v. 16, no. 2 (2010): 164-165.

[13] Jurian Langer and Wolf Sauter, “The consistency requirement in EU Regulation”, Columbia Journal of European Regulation, v. 24, no. 1 (2017): 43-45.

[14] Delcher, “Animal welfare”, 6–8.

[15] Ilja Richard Pavone, “In the direction of an EU animal welfare legislation: the case of animal testing and the boundaries of latest welfarism”, Animal & Pure Sources Regulation Overview, v. 16 (2020): 208–212.

[16] Judgment CJEU Centraal Israëlitisch Consistorie van België, recitals 81 and 90.

[17] Judgment CJEU Centraal Israëlitisch Consistorie van België, recitals 25-32.

[18] Judgment CJEU Centraal Israëlitisch Consistorie van België, recitals 47-56.

[19] Judgment CJEU Zuchtvieh-Export, 23 April 2015, Case C-424/13, ECLI:EU:C:2015:259, recitals 1-2.

[20] Judgment CJEU Zuchtvieh-Export, recitals 20-22.

[21] Judgment CJEU Zuchtvieh-Export, recitals 25-30.

[22] As beforehand seen with the evaluation of EU judgments C-336/19 and C-424/13.

[23] Council of the European Union, “Council choice on the signing and provisional software of the interim settlement on commerce between the European Union, of the one half, and the Southern Widespread Market, the Argentine Republic, the Federative Republic of Brazil, the Republic of Paraguay and the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, of the opposite half,” 12417/1/25 REV 1, 8 January 2026.

[24] Council Directive 98/58/EC of 20 July 1998 regarding the safety of animals stored for farming functions.

[25] Council Regulation (EC) No 1/2005 of twenty-two December 2004 on the safety of animals throughout transport and associated operations.

[26] Council Regulation (EC) No 1099/2009 of 24 September 2009 on the safety of animals on the time of killing.

[27] European Union, Council Regulation (EC) No 1099/2009 of 24 September 2009 on the safety of animals on the time of killing, Official Journal of the European Union L 303 (18 November 2009);
European Union, Council Regulation (EC) No 1/2005 of twenty-two December 2004 on the safety of animals throughout transport and associated operations, Official Journal of the European Union L 3 (5 January 2005).

[28] Leonardo Fabio Pastorino and Washington Carlos de Almeida, “Overview: affect of bilateral commerce on the promotion of animal welfare guidelines. The case of commerce relations between the European Union and Mercosur”, Animal, v. 17 (2023): 1-4, doi: 10.1016/j.animal.2023.100837.

[29] As mentioned by the EU Intergroup on the Welfare and Conservation of Animals, particularly by Daniel Pérez Vega – challenge officer and animal welfare at Eurogroup for Animals: “One other drawback within the settlement is that each one the sustainability provisions within the settlement, together with all of the texts that have been printed in December, can not offset the damaging penalties of the settlement. As a result of all of the sustainability provisions, they’re very good, there’s very good wording in them, there’s no approach to implement them. And we all know this as a result of we now have the identical drawback. I sit in a lot of the different and monitor the implementation of agreements, and none of them have had a cooperation motion activated, as a result of more often than not you want the political willingness of companions to cooperate, and there’s no obligation to take action”. See EU Intergroup on the Welfare and Conservation of Animals, “EU-Mercosur: why the commerce deal nonetheless fails animals”, June 19, 2025, accessed February 16, 2026, https://www.animalwelfareintergroup.eu/calendar/eu-mercosur-why-trade-deal-still-fails-animals.

[30] Coverage evaluation promoted by animal welfare organizations counsel that elevated EU’s demand for animal-derived merchandise might encourage the growth of intensive farming programs in Mercosur nations. These reviews emphasise that export-oriented manufacturing is usually dominated by massive industrial producers somewhat than small-scale farmers, doubtlessly rising animal struggling and making a mismatch between EU shopper expectations and manufacturing realities overseas. See Eurogroup for Animals, “The EU-Mercosur.”

[31] Eurogroup for Animals, “EU-Mercosur.”

[32] Council of the European Union, “Council choice on the signing, on behalf of the Union, and on the provisional software of the partnership settlement between the European Union and its Member States, of the one half, and the Southern Widespread Market, the Argentine Republic, the Federative Republic of Brazil, the Republic of Paraguay and the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, of the opposite half.”

[33] Eurogroup for Animals, “EU-Mercosur.”

[34] European Fee, “Communication from the Fee to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Financial and Social Committee and the Committee of the Areas: a farm to fork technique for a good, wholesome and environmentally-friendly meals system”, COM(2020) 381 last, Brussels, Could 20, 2020, 4–10.

[35] Ryland, “Taking inventory”, 219.

[36] Eurogroup for Animals, “EU-Mercosur”.

Image credit score: by Matthias Zomer on pexels.com.