Animal advocacy in the European Union

Camilla Björkbom

Chapter 26 in Research Handbook on Animal Law and Animal Rights, 2025, pp 482-508 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: The European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) ‘End the Cage Age’ became unprecedented as the first ECI to collect more than one million signatures and receive a commitment from the European Commission for new legislation. Drawing on theoretical concepts from the literature on EU interest group lobbying, this chapter discusses the advocacy around ‘End the Cage Age’. It shows how animal advocates use the EU's multi-level and multi-institutional structure to advance a ban on cages. After the Commission failed to deliver on its promise, ‘End the Cage Age’ extended beyond the sphere of animal welfare and became connected to a broader critique of the EU democratic deficit and the credibility of the ECI as a democratic tool. ‘End the Cage Age’ illustrates how the difficulty of holding EU decision-makers accountable can result in narrow sectoral interests from the agro-industry being listened to ahead of EU elections. While ‘End the Cage Age’ successfully put a ban on cages on the EU agenda, the events around it demonstrate two fundamental system-level problems: firstly, the difficulty of holding the Commission accountable to the ECI; and secondly, the weight the Commission gives to narrow sectoral interests, which are allowed to overrun the interests of the general public and of several hundred million animals. The moral consideration given to animals in EU law needs to be translated into legal rights that can be enforced and that are protected from being trumped by business interests.

Keywords: EU animal advocacy; Interest group lobbying; European Citizens Initiative; ECI; End the Cage Age (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035324873
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