On this day in vegan history · June 30, 2021
Brussels Promises to End the Cage Age
1.4 million signatures forced the European Commission to promise a future without cages for hens, sows, calves and rabbits, a promise it would later miss.
The facts
- Date of response
- 30 June 2021
- Signatures behind the petition
- 1.4 million, from across the EU
- Animals named in the commitment
- Laying hens, sows, calves, rabbits, pullets, quail, ducks and geese
- Deadline the Commission set for itself
- A legislative proposal by the end of 2023
On 30 June 2021 the European Commission formally answered the End the Cage Age European Citizens' Initiative, which had gathered more than 1.4 million signatures from across the EU in a year. The Commission agreed to bring forward legislation banning cage confinement for laying hens, sows, calves, rabbits and several other farmed species, and said it would table that proposal by the end of 2023. It was the first time Brussels committed, in writing, to phase out cages across the whole of EU farming rather than species by species. The timeline slipped badly: five years on, no such proposal had been delivered, even as the underlying commitment stayed on the books.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
-
That deadline passed without a proposal, but citizens' expectations remain strong.
Humane World for Animals, on the Commission's missed 2023 deadline
Source: Humane World for Animals
Why it still matters
It was the closest the EU has come to admitting that cages themselves, not just their size or spacing, are the problem for farmed animals. The promise still hasn't been kept in full, which is its own lesson: a petition can move a government to say yes, but turning that yes into a regulation is a separate, much slower fight.
Sources
This history is still being written.
Every morning the brief covers what moved veganism forward, and every day one more verified piece of that story joins this almanac. Free, and tomorrow’s lands in your inbox.
Free, every morning. No guilt. No preaching.