The EU regulations require that animals would be transported without delays, increased border controls cannot ensure that. Civil society groups suggest banning live animal transport longer than eight hours.  

As a response, the European Commission has published guidelines for the implementation of “green lanes”, highlighting that checks or health screenings should not take more than 15 minutes, in order to guarantee the flow of goods and services.

However, in a recent speech to the European Parliament, Commissioner for Agriculture Janusz Wojciechowski acknowledged that the COVID-19  crisis has demonstrated “how dependent our agriculture and food production system is on transport”, also noting that the food production “has become concentrated, local markets are weakening and disappearing, and the distance from farm to fork has become longer rather than shorter.”