On December 13, 2023, an online meeting was held to present the report “The experiences of EU member states about performing official controls for animal welfare” within the framework of the Swiss-Ukrainian program “Higher Value Added Trade from the Organic and Dairy Sector in Ukraine” (QFTP).
The event was attended by more than 150 participants, including representatives of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine, the State Service of Ukraine for Food Safety and Consumer Protection (central and regional levels), associations and international technical assistance projects in the field of animal health and welfare.
Taras Vysotskyi, First Deputy Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine, in his welcoming speech, emphasized that the current course of the state towards EU membership is unchanged, so the relevance of further harmonization of legislation and approaches to state control along the entire agri-food chain, including animal welfare in accordance with EU rules, has increased. He also noted that the implementation of animal welfare requirements during the keeping, transportation, slaughtering of farm animals and control over their compliance is an integral aspect of access of livestock products to EU markets. Therefore, such an analysis of the experience of European countries in exercising official control over animal welfare will allow to consider and implement best practices in this area in Ukraine.
Manon Schuppers, international expert of the QFTP Dairy Sector component, also emphasized the importance of introducing animal welfare requirements in Ukraine in response to the demand of EU consumers and to support and further development of exports to the EU. She presented the purpose of the meeting and the structure of the report “The experiences of EU member states about performing official controls for animal welfare”, which was prepared by QFTP experts and contains an overview of available information on the systems of official control over animal welfare during keeping, transportation and slaughtering in EU Member States, namely: France, Croatia, Spain, Italy, Finland, Sweden, Hungary, and Slovenia.
Julia Hüttl, international expert of the QFTP Dairy Sector component, comprehensively and in detail covered the requirements of EU legislation on animal welfare and state control over their observance.
Borys Kobal, Head of the Veterinary Medicine and Animal Welfare Unit of the Department of State Policy in the Field of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine, informed about harmonization of Ukrainian legislation with EU requirements in this area and the priorities for 2025.
The peculiarities of implementing the system of state control over animal welfare in the EU Member States on the example of Slovenia and Croatia were demonstrated by the Senior National Expert of the Dairy Sector component of QFTP, Victoria Lets, and on the example of Finland – Julia Hüttl.
Victoria Lets presented the main conclusions and recommendations for the implementation of official control systems for animal welfare in Ukraine, based on the analysis of European and national legislation and the experience of EU member states.
The participants of the meeting were very active, asked questions and lively discussed the aspects that are important for the implementation of animal welfare requirements by business operators and the implementation of official control measures to ensure compliance with these requirements.
QFTP experts will continue to support the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine and the State Service of Ukraine for Food Safety and Consumer Protection in harmonizing national legislation, developing the necessary tools,and developing institutional capacity to implement a comprehensive system of official control over animal welfare.
Presentation materials of the event are available on the QFTP website in the section “Training materials: political dialogue and legislation”. The video of the event can be viewed here.
You can read the report “The experiences of EU member states about performing official controls for animal welfare” here.
This event was supported by Switzerland within the framework of the Swiss-Ukrainian Program ““Higher Value Added Trade from the Organic and Dairy Sectors in Ukraine”, implemented by the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL, Switzerland) in partnership with SAFOSO AG (Switzerland), www.qftp.org and with the participation of the State Service of Ukraine for Food Safety and Consumer Protection.
