More than 320 million farm animals are transported every year in Europe. Some are moved for use in breeding or further fattening but a considerable amount are destined for slaughter. Some journeys are short, from the farm straight to the slaughterhouse, but others can take several days such as those for fattening pigs from the Netherlands to Russia.

There is great concern about the transport of live animals particularly in long distance journeys. Loading, unloading and the lack of space cause the animals to experience stress and in addition they often suffer from hunger, thirst and exhaustion.

The suffering and high mortality in transport is due to current legislation not being strict enough, but also because in many cases the transport companies ignore the rules and members states are not enforcing existing laws.

In addition to the high risk for the animals' welfare, there is overwhelming evidence that transport is a major factor in the development and spreading of animal diseases such as foot-and-mouth disease.

From January 2007 the new rules under EU Regulation 1/2005 apply to all livestock transport. The regulation includes important provisions to safeguard the welfare of animals such as training of drivers, better transport conditions, and importantly more control tools including satellite navigation. Although it foresees for different species to be rested, fed and watered at different intervals it does not set a maximum journey time limit for live transports.

All vehicles for journeys longer than eight hours should be equipped with satellite navigation as from January 2009 but the Commission and members states have failed to agree harmonised technical specifications.

Meanwhile reports of controls confirm that member states still authorise illegal journeys and fail to enforce the new rules.

Commissioner Androulla Vassilliou promised to come forward with proposals on journey times, loading densities and with proposals on satellite navigation before the end of the Commission (December 2009).

A revision of the Transport Regulation was on the agenda of the Commission throughout 2009 but the proposal to change the legislation was delayed within the Commission several times. It now remains to be seen if the new Commission (2009-2014) chooses to take up the dossier.

Eurogroup believes that the time and the frequency of all transport of live animals should be limited and long distance transport should not be allowed.

The existing European legislation should be revised to limit the maximum journey times and to significantly improve the quality of the transport as well as the enforcement tools. Satellite navigation should be introduced as a matter of urgency, and the information from transports should be sent to a central databank which can be used by member states to track animal movements.

The Commission should urge member states to increase and strengthen the authorisation and control of live transports.