Position Paper
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POSITION PAPER REFIT Evaluation of the EU Zoos Directive 1999/22/EC Context The 1999/22/EC Zoos Directive relating to the keeping of wild animals in zoos1 constitutes a crucial piece of legislation for the management of wild animals in captivity by establishing a compulsory and centrally regulated licencing of zoo facilities in EU Member States. The Directive aims at ensuring that the keeping of animals in zoos throughout the European Union is done in such a way that wild species are preserved and animal welfare is respected as much as possible. Moreover zoos should fulfil a role on public education and scientific research. The Directive provides a basic legal framework with which Member States must comply. This has been interpreted differently by each Member State. Therefore, this lack of consistency has led to varying standards across the EU. Since the entry into force of the Zoos Directive, Eurogroup for Animals has been actively monitoring its transposition into national laws and its implementation by Member States. Guidelines for educational and scientific activities of zoos and a strategy for the re-homing of animals from closing zoos were published in 20072, as well as two reports highlighting the failure of many Member States to implement and enforce the Directive have been published in 20053 and in 20084. In order to support practitioners and Member States in implementing the requirements of the Zoos Directive, in July 2015, the European Commission published the EU Zoos Directive Good Practices Document5. However, this long-awaited document, it’s still available only in English, making it inaccessible to relevant stakeholders in many Member States. In 2016, the European Commission (EC) started the evaluation of the Zoos Directive as part of the Commission's Regulatory Fitness and Performance programme (REFIT). The evaluation looks at past 1 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=uriserv:OJ.L_.1999.094.01.0024.01.ENG 2 Strategy for Confiscated Animals, 2007. Eurogroup for Animals & Eurogroup for Wildlife and laboratory Animals. 3 Report on the Implementation of the EU Zoos Directive, Eurogroup for Animals & Eurogroup for Wildlife and Laboratory Animals, 2005 4 Galhardo L., 2008. Report on the Implementation of the Zoos Directive, Eurogroup for Animals. 5 http://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/pdf/EU_Zoos_Directive_Good_Practices.pdf POSITION PAPER and current performance and provides an assessment by five different criteria: Relevance, Effectiveness, Efficiency, EU-added value, and Coherence. In this context Eurogroup for Animals and its members urge the Commission to adopt measures that will improve the implementation of the Zoos Directive as well as the welfare of the animals in zoos. This Position Paper summarises our recommendations to the EC to ensure that the evaluation process results in an improved fulfilment of the Directive’s primary objective: to promote wild animal species protection and conservation by strengthening the role of zoos in the conservation of biodiversity. Eurogroup for Animals considers that: The EU Zoos Directive has relevance, effectiveness, EU-added value and coherence, and therefore should be maintained; The adoption of the Zoos Directive has established a licensing system, which is a necessary step towards establishing the needed protection for wild animals in captivity and preventing illegal traffic of endangered species; The Zoos Directive is the only EU legislation that requires zoos to respect the welfare of the animals, by accommodating them under conditions that satisfy their biological needs, providing species-specific enrichment in the enclosure and maintaining a high standard of animal husbandry, veterinary care and nutrition; The Directive has the important EU added value of requesting the exchange of information and data related to species conservation, which is crucial to ensure that ex-situ breeding programmes - which are not a conservation action per se - achieve conservation results. In many cases, the adoption of the Directive has prevented the opening of new zoos by amateur individuals who don’t have the expertise and/or the financial resources to meet the Directive’s requirements. Eurogroup for Animals calls the European Commission to: Establish a clear and efficient monitoring system of the level of implementation of the Zoos Directive in all Member States, requesting Member States to regularly report to the Commission on the actions taken to implement and enforce the Directive; Request the necessary information to Member States to evaluate the national licensing systems and assess their effectiveness, the establishment of training courses to the enforcement staff, regular inspections and the allocation of adequate resources at the national level; Promptly open infringement procedures against Member States which fail to meet the requirements of the Directive; POSITION PAPER Promptly translate the EU Zoos Directive Good Practices Document in all Member States’ languages. An important policy of the EC is that “EU citizens have access to EU legislation and key political documents in the official languages of the Commission6”. The Good Practices Document is aimed, as stated in the document itself, "at supporting practitioners and Member States in implementing the spirit and requirements of the Zoos Directive". To significantly improve the level of implementation of the Directive, this crucial document must therefore be accessible to all Member States; Request Member States to not deliver licenses to zoos which use animals in performances where animals are trained to performance unnatural behaviour, which sell, donate or lend animals to circuses and which cull surplus animals as result of poor management plans for their animal populations. These practices do not contribute, either directly or indirectly, to the conservation of biodiversity, which is the overall objective of the Zoos Directive, and should consequently be prohibited. Call on Member States to establish rigorous management plans for the zoo animal populations, ensuring that breeding is allowed only in the context of well-coordinated official breeding programmes. Call on Member States to allocate sufficient resources for the enforcement of the Zoos Directive. These should cover, among other things, the training of inspectors and also the rehoming of animals from zoos which must be closed for not respecting legal standards; Create EU funding opportunities to support the implementation of the Directive in Member States. CONTACT Ilaria Di Silvestre Programme Leader – Wildlife| Eurogroup for Animals Email [email protected] Tel: +32 (0)2 740 08 824 Rue Ducale 29, B-1000 Brussels 6 https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/figures/administration_en .