History in the Making! European Commission Commits to Banning Cages for Animals on Farms

Progress! The European Commission just announced plans to ban cages for animals on farms following pressure from over 1.4 million compassionate people, including PETA supporters.

This day will go down in history – and it’ll mean that, soon, the 300 million hens, mother pigs, calves, rabbits, ducks, geese, quails, and other animals on farms in the EU may no longer be kept in cramped cages for their whole lives.

The cages will be phased out by 2027.

“Animals are sentient beings and we have a moral, societal responsibility to ensure that on-farm conditions for animals reflect this.”

– Stella Kyriakides, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety

What’s ‘End the Cage Age’?

Launched in 2018 by 170 groups, including PETA and Compassion in World Farming, the #EndTheCageAge European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) has been a collaborative journey. The aim? To help make the lives of the more than 300 million animals imprisoned in cages and other confinement systems across the EU less miserable.

It’s the first-ever successful ECI on farmed-animal welfare.

The campaign included events held in EU countries and collaborations with influential MEPs and celebrities to ensure the European Commission listened to our voices. It also featured the launch of new undercover investigations showing that vulnerable young calves are caged and isolated on EU farms, ducks and geese are barbarically abused for foie gras, quails are kept in cramped cages that hold as many as 80 birds, and rabbits spend their entire lives inside cages so small that they can barely stand upright, let alone hop.

What’s Next?

The Commission intends to “put forward a legislative proposal by the end of 2023 to phase out and finally prohibit the use of cages for all the animal species and categories referred to in the initiative”.

By the end of next year, the Commission will evaluate the proposal, which will then need the approval of the European Parliament and the Council of the EU. We’ll keep you posted!

What You Can Do

The best thing you can do for all animals – right here and now – is to stop eating them. Take our vegan pledge to make a world of difference for chickens, pigs, and other animals:

Take the 30-Day Vegan Pledge

The UK government must follow the EU’s lead and ban cages on UK farms, sparing millions of calves, sows and their piglets, and chickens the particular hell of being confined to a small cage. While going vegan is the best thing you can do to help animals, will you also sign the petition to call for the government to end the cage age for animals still languishing on UK farms?