As the elections have shown, this is a subject which increasingly matters to millions of Europeans who vote accordingly.

In the run-up to the elections, 1,004 candidates signed Eurogroup for Animals’ #Vote4Animals pledge, of which 115 new MEPs were elected. That means approximately 1 in 7 members of the European Parliament have committed to work towards better animal welfare legislation on a number of important issues, including improving general standards throughout the EU.

Luckily for them, they will get a chance to start working on living up to their promise right away. The European Commission recently published a roadmap to evaluate the EU Strategy for the Protection and Welfare of Animals 2012-2015. One of the main points to be covered by the evaluation will be whether the strategy has appropriately responded to animal welfare needs and problems up until 2018. Our view is that it hasn’t.