A Beautiful Day for Animals
July 6, 2021
By David Schwartz
It’s official - the EU will phase out cages in animal farming across Europe by 2027. [1] This is big news. It means that together we’ve improved conditions for millions of farm animals.
By backing the move to stop the use of cages, the EU has listened to the voices of 1.4 million EU citizens who spoke up for change. [2] It wasn’t certain they’d introduce these measures, but in the end the public outcry and the tireless work led by our partners was too much for them to ignore. This is people-power in action.
Today, hundreds of millions of animals in Europe spend most of their lives in a cage, sometimes from birth until death. [3]
As a community, this is an issue we know well. We’ve been taking action on it together for years. [4] Today’s success is a result of the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) to End the Cage Age run by an incredible coalition of partners.
Two years ago they asked for help and we responded with tens of thousands of us adding our signatures! [5] This is WeMove Europe at our best. Our goal is to use people power to build a better Europe. That means building partnerships like this, that connect our community with others rooted in the challenges we face. All to run bigger campaigns than any of us could alone. This is how we transform Europe together.
We leapt into action to sustain the demand for a better future for farm animals. First, we chipped in to fund an opinion poll. This helped show where Europeans stood on the issue and gave a way to push back against the industrial farming lobbyists. Then, thousands of us took the time to contact our MEPs just ahead of critical votes in the European Parliament.
It's a contribution that didn’t go unnoticed. The team running the ECI said the WeMove Europe community rallied behind every call - “For our ECI, the WeMove team were our guardian angels. Their expertise and unconditional support were fundamental to our initiative getting across the finishing line.”
Together, we’ve played our part in keeping the pressure up. So, when the EU’s top official for health Stella Kyriakides announced the end of the cage, it’s your voice she’s listening to.
References:
[1] https://twitter.com/SKyriakidesEU/status/1410197648875864068?s=20
[2] https://europa.eu/citizens-initiative/initiatives/details/2018/000004_en
[3] https://www.endthecageage.eu/how-close-are-we-to-a-cage-free-europe/
[4] https://act.wemove.eu/campaigns/no-cages
https://act.wemove.eu/campaigns/industrial-farming
[5] The End the Cage Age ECI was coordinated by our partners Compassion in World Farming (CIWF)
