By Martin Banks - 5th October 2009
This trade is horrendously cruel
Liz Lynne
MEPs will be asked to back a written declaration which calls on the EU to outlaw the "cruel" long distance transportation of horses in Europe.
UK Liberal MEP Liz Lynne will launch the declaration during this week's mini-plenary in Brussels.
She says horses are regularly transported for days on end in temperatures of up to 40 degrees.
The trade normally takes place between east European countries like Romania and Poland to countries such as Belgium, France and, most frequently, Italy where consumption of the product is amongst the highest in Europe.
She introduced a similar declaration last year and was signed by 103 MEPs but Lynne hopes that this time more deputies will put their names to it.
Speaking at a special event in parliament to raise awareness of the issue, she said, "This trade is horrendously cruel. We are saying it should be replaced by a caucus-only trade.
"The fear is that when everyone's talking about the economy and other pressing matters, the whole issue will be pushed to the bottom of the policy agenda and that is why we need to keep this in the public domain."
Speaking at the same event, her colleague Graham Watson said, "The way horses are treated is an example of why animal welfare standards need to be upgraded."
Roly Owens, CEO of the UK-based World Horse Welfare, which monitors the issue, says up to 100,000 horses are transported thousands of miles each year in "horrific" conditions.
The WHW recently carried out a spot-check survey on horses being transported across Europe and found that in each shipment the animals had insufficient space and had tethers or ropes that were "inappropriate" and could have caused injury.
"Some had no access to water, drivers were striking the horses and the vehicles had no side gates, risking the safety of the horses," he said.
He said that where necessary horses should instead by slaughtered before the journey starts and transported as chilled meat.
His organisation has organised a petition, signed by 130,000 people, which will be handed to EU health commissioner Androulla Vassiliou this week.
"This calls for the transportation regulation relating to this issue to be updated so that it the maximum journey time for horses is limited to 8-12 hours. At present, it is 24 hours although, in reality, horses are often transported for a much longer period."
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