9 March 2010
MEPs today adopted an extension to the UK's current pet passport rules, which allows for special health checks to prevent the spread of rabies, tapeworm and ticks. Ireland, Malta, Finland and Sweden will also be able to maintain temporary national measures until December 2011, but after this date a new regime will apply EU-wide.
The pet passport rules have been in place since 2003 and allow people to take their cats, dogs and pet ferrets with them to other EU Member States. Today's vote was overwhelming (618 votes to 17, with 5 abstentions) and was necessary so that the current scheme could continue beyond its expiry date of June 2010.
Below are extracts from Monday's debate in Strasbourg (European Commission + UK MEPs - nb: the rapporteur, Sinn Fein MEP Bairbre de Brún spoke in Irish and we do not yet have an English version of the speech).
John Dalli, Member of the Commission – Before a vote is taken on the compromise text, I am pleased to confirm that the Commission does not intend to propose a further prolongation of the transitional regime, which will come to an end on 31 December 2011. This means that fully harmonised rules will be in place from 1 January 2012. However, the Commission does intend to propose a revision of the regulation in its entirety before 30 June 2011 and, in particular, the aspects of delegated and implementing acts.
Linda McAvan MEP (Labour, Yorkshire & Humber) – It is an important piece of legislation for lots of citizens, being about moving their pet freely around the EU. When we first adopted this legislation a few years ago there was a lot of support for it, but we have this transitional period...which is important to prevent diseases spreading to states that do not have those diseases.
I welcome the Commission’s support for extending the transitional period so that, when we do have the new legislation, all countries will have the same legislation. We will by that point have much higher levels of animal health and animal welfare across the EU.
Jim Nicholson MEP (UUP, Northern Ireland) – In my opinion this is a small but vital piece of legislation which will protect those areas and those countries that are concerned by the threat of rabies; the disease continues to occur in some parts of the EU, and hopefully by the end of 2011 vaccination programmes will have proved successful in eradicating the disease once and for all.
Until then, however, we have found a way which allows us to continue to enforce our own stricter requirements under the transitional period before we move, in line with other EU Member States, to the general regime.
Chris Davies MEP (LibDem, North West) – Mr President, I just wanted to say a few words in praise of the legislation we have. I understand it was based upon the United Kingdom’s pet travel scheme, which was introduced about a decade ago. That helped us reduce dramatically the quarantine regulations we had in our country which had caused much distress to both pets and their owners...Hundreds of thousands of animals now travel with their owners each year across Europe.
The reality is that rabies has been kept very firmly under control – 2 700 cases 20 years ago down to less than 300 cases last year, and not one single case associated with the movement of domestic animals under this scheme.
When this legislation was first discussed, many ferret owners in the United Kingdom came to me and asked why this legislation could not include their animals too. They wanted to take them to ferret exhibitions across Europe...Eventually we decided that the incidence of rabies in domestic ferrets was so small that we could include them, but apparently, I am told, there have been relatively few movements.
I can now look to my constituents and, when they ask me what the European Union has done for them, I can say that we have made it possible for you to take your pet on holiday – your cat, your dog or your ferret.
Stuart Agnew MEP (UKIP, Eastern) – Mr President, I understand that the original idea for the creation of pet passports came from the Official Monster Raving Loony Party in the UK, which probably best sums up this dangerous scheme.
I understand there is no standardisation of enforcement of the scheme. Some countries require the formal passport while others will take documentation in any form; still others will not accept the passport as proof of vaccination. Many airlines are unable to provide details of the formal procedures and staff are poorly trained.