ICARE seminar series: The EU’s Overdue Animal Welfare Reform: Where Next?
EU animal welfare law is at an important moment. Under the Farm to Fork Strategy, the European Commission committed to revising and modernising EU animal welfare legislation, including rules on farmed animals, animal transport, slaughter, and possible animal welfare labelling. The Commission’s response to the End the Cage Age European Citizens’ Initiative also raised expectations that the reform would include a legal pathway towards phasing out cages for the animals covered by the initiative.
Several years later, the broader reform package remains incomplete. A proposal on animal transport is moving through the EU legislative process, and the new EU Regulation on the welfare and traceability of dogs and cats has now been adopted. Yet the central revision of on-farm animal welfare rules—including the future of cage systems and species-specific standards for farmed animals—remains pending.
This seminar will offer a practical conversation about where the EU animal welfare law reform process currently stands, what has progressed, and what remains outstanding. It will bring together EU-level legal, policy, and advocacy perspectives to help participants better understand the structure of the overdue reform package, the legislative process, and the key questions advocates should be following in 2026 and beyond.
The discussion will focus in particular on the relationship between the different parts of the reform, including animal transport, on-farm animal welfare, cages, species-specific standards, enforcement, and the role of civil society in the next stages. It will also consider how animal advocates can engage with welfare law reform strategically while keeping sight of the broader legal and political struggle for animals.
Part of ICARE’s Litigating and Legislating for Animal Rights seminar series, this event is designed for animal advocates, legal professionals, policymakers, decision-makers, researchers, and anyone interested in understanding how EU law can be used—and challenged—to advance the protection of animals.
The seminar will take place live on Zoom in a conversation format: a 60-minute moderated discussion with our guests, followed by a 30-minute Q&A with the audience. The conversation will be moderated by Dr Anna Caramuru P. Aubert.
Speakers
Reineke Hameleers is the CEO of Eurogroup for Animals, a pan-European animal protection organisation convening more than 100 member organisations in the EU and beyond. She is committed to driving long-lasting, positive change for animals by improving corporate practices and legislation, while supporting effective enforcement. Reineke holds a Master’s degree in Arts and Science Studies from Maastricht University, where she specialised in the human-animal relationship. She has been active in animal protection since 2003 and previously worked as Regional Director of the Dutch Society for the Protection of Animals. She is also a Vice-President of the World Federation for Animals and a member of the Netherlands Committee for the Protection of Animals used for Scientific Purposes. Reineke lives with four rescue hens, two rescue rabbits, and a cat.
Peter Stevenson is Chief Policy Advisor of Compassion in World Farming and a qualified UK lawyer. He received an OBE in 2020 for services to farm animal welfare. He studied economics and law at Trinity College, University of Cambridge, and has played a leading role in securing major EU legal advances for farmed animals, including the bans on veal crates, battery cages, and sow stalls, as well as the recognition of animals as sentient beings in EU law.
Tilly Metz is a Luxembourgish Member of the European Parliament, elected in 2018, and a member of the Greens/EFA Group. She is a member of the Committee on the Environment, Climate and Food Safety, a substitute member of the Committee on Transport and Tourism and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, and Vice-Chair of the Committee on Public Health. She previously chaired the European Parliament’s Committee of Inquiry on the Protection of Animals during Transport and is now Honorary President of the Intergroup on the Welfare and Conservation of Animals. She is the European Parliament’s co-rapporteur in the transport committee on the Commission’s proposal on animal transport and represented the Greens/EFA Group in the negotiations on the proposal for the welfare and traceability of dogs and cats.
We look forward to seeing you there!