Union attacks lack of EU action over animal welfare THE European Commission has no plans to check on member states that are not meeting pig and poultry regulations, a decision that was yesterday described as "lamentable" by a top National Farmers Union of Scotland official. Policy director Peter Loggie was commenting on his return from Brussels, where it was revealed that no inspectors from the commission's Food and Veterinary Office (FVO) would be visiting countries yet to comply with either the battery cage ban, which became law on 1 January, 2012, or the sow stall ban, which came into effect this January. The information emerged from an egg and poultrymeat advisory meeting where representatives from the FVO and the commission's animal welfare unit were questioned on the poor progress being made on both pieces of legislation. Loggie made the point that the UK had met both deadlines and the failure of many member states to introduce the legislation placed Scottish producers at a competitive disadvantage. He said: "The commission's attitude towards inspection and enforcement of these important pieces of welfare legislation remains lamentable and fails to ensure that all producers across Europe are abiding by the same set of rules." He reminded the meeting that, in January 2012, the commission's animal welfare staff had promised inspections to check on compliance. However, 15 months after the laying cage ban was introduced, we still have four Member states - believed to be Cyprus, Italy, Greece and Poland - still failing to comply with the laying cage ban. Despite this, the commission has not taken action against any of them, nor against any of the others that were significantly late. Further, another four countries that failed to meet the original deadline - Belgium, Hungary, Spain, Portugal - have not had an FVO inspection to establish that they are now compliant and no inspection has been scheduled for 2013. This situation, he claimed, could allow them to continue to flout the regulations. Loggie continued: "At the end of 2012, only five countries in Europe were reported as being fully compliant with the stall ban, but within weeks that figure had supposedly risen to ten. The progress... has been nothing short of miraculous. In the space of a few weeks, France has gone from just 33 per cent compliant to 72 per cent, Belgium from 45 to 89 per cent, Eire from 57 to 82 per cent and Italy from 69 to 99 per cent. He called for greater commission resources to be directed towards inspection, backed up by penalty proceedings against those countries where non-compliance with welfare rules continued.