Source: European Parliament
Question for written answer E-001444/2025
to the Commission
Rule 144
Kristian Vigenin (S&D)
The management of infectious diseases in livestock and breeding animals remains a major challenge for animal health, farmers’ well-being and sustainable agriculture. Current protocols often involve the culling of entire herds or flocks, even in situations where more targeted, science-based responses might be possible. This approach can be unnecessarily distressing for farmers, financially damaging, and ethically troubling – especially when less drastic alternatives may exist through advances in veterinary science.
The outbreaks of small ruminant plague (PPR) in Bulgaria in 2018 and 2024 further underscore the urgent need for more effective, nuanced, and evidence-based disease response strategies.
- 1.Is the Commission planning any new initiatives focused on improving the management of infectious diseases in livestock, particularly through financing research into alternative solutions such as vaccines, treatments and disease monitoring systems?
- 2.Is there any intention to review and potentially revise the existing EU protocols for handling diseased animals, in order to allow for more flexible and evidence-based approaches that could reduce the reliance on mass culling?
- 3.Why was the issue of infectious disease management not more prominently addressed in the recently published Vision for Agriculture and Food[1], and will the Commission consider integrating this dimension more explicitly in future strategic planning?
Submitted: 9.4.2025
- [1] COM(2025)0075.