The EU Sets a Floor for Every Farm Animal

On 20 July 1998 the Council of the European Union adopted Directive 98/58/EC, the bloc's first general law setting minimum welfare standards for animals bred or kept for farming. Its reach was wider than the phrase "farm animal" suggests: fish, reptiles and amphibians counted too, not just cattle, pigs and hens. The directive required that any animal whose welfare depended on human attention be checked at least once a day, and it barred keeping an animal in a way that restricted its movement enough to cause it suffering or injury. It leaned on a 1976 Council of Europe convention that had never carried real enforcement power. Animal welfare groups called it a genuine floor, and also a low one, since it set minimums rather than the housing bans and space requirements many had pushed for.