Expert Analysis: Animals Have No Choice! “Krone” Readers Do

The ÖVP, for example, which sees itself as a party for farmers, is very strange. Because instead of relying exclusively on meat from Austria in public canteens, a labeling requirement was adopted that is not worth the paper it is written on. The FPÖ supports the training of protection dogs for private individuals and believes that this fulfills the will of the voters. Serious error of judgment!

There are only about 6,000 followers for this ‘armament’. Ridiculous – because we get daily phone calls and letters to finally stop this form of dog training. It also seems strange that the SPÖ’s animal protection spokesman stubbornly goes hand in hand with the FPÖ. The Greens campaigned, but also sacrificed a lot at the altar of the coalition. Good that NEOS finally has an animal protection spokesman.

A choice without pain
The parties’ answers have been assessed by five experts. I hope we can help you make your decision on election day. Because it shouldn’t be for the cat, and we certainly don’t want to go to the dogs.

Yours, Maggie Entenfellner
“Crown” Tierecke

If the chicken in the Styrian roast chicken salad comes from Poland and the Wienerschnitzel is served with Dutch veal without the guests knowing, then that is hypocritical. The fact that the mandatory indication of origin was not extended to the catering industry is a clear shortcoming of the government. It should not be the case that the economy is blocked and the parties simply accept this! It is worrying that not all leading candidates recognize how important this issue is for consumers and local agriculture.

Both the labelling of origin in the catering industry and the labelling of the way in which animal products are stored in supermarkets and restaurants must be included in the next government programme. This is the only way that people will have the opportunity to make informed decisions – and will no longer be forced to pay for food that they would never choose themselves. The government must finally take responsibility here.

The organic share in federal procurement is an important aspect in promoting the organic sector. But that too must be complied with. There are currently requirements, but they are not complied with, because apparently there are no sanctions. Babler rightly recognized that government procurement is an extremely important lever, but the purely federal level falls short: what about states and municipalities?

The FPÖ wants to strengthen direct sales, but whether a farmer wants that is his only decision. Some people like it, others don’t. You can’t pretend that. Yes, it’s true: organic products make farmers more money. The point is, however, that in addition to the more expensive organic products, there are also cheaper products, some of which come from abroad. Moreover, it is a misconception that local products automatically mean better animal welfare: 70 percent of fattening pigs and cattle in Austria live on fully slatted floors. And even on small family farms that engage in direct marketing, animals often suffer from poor husbandry standards.

As expected, the Greens make good suggestions here and also recognize public procurement as leverage. Monitoring and budget are also important, as are changes in food production.

NEOS’ suggestion about consumer education is of course correct. But often it is the price that determines it. It would also be important for us that the husbandry standards are higher and available for all animals used for agricultural purposes. Then the responsibility no longer lies ‘only’ with the consumer. Unfortunately, the purely ‘educational work’ of consumers falls short; Only with transparent labeling can consumers be informed about what is actually behind a product and can make their own decisions. Furthermore, we see a small contradiction in Meinl-Reisinger’s answer regarding labeling.

The “Action Plan for Sustainable Procurement” mentioned by Karl Nehammer is often mentioned by politicians, but unfortunately this only applies to the federal ministries. What we need are specifications for all of Austria! What about states and communities? A note because the price is always increased: the meat portions should be smaller anyway, but they should come from better livestock farming. This also makes it affordable.

The VGT welcomes the approach of the Greens and NEOS, who advocate a restructuring of the powers towards the federal government. We also see an improvement in communication, for example with databases, between the individual authorities and control bodies as progress. However, there is also an urgent need to increase the density of controls; we think it makes sense to finance this by means of an adjusted distribution of the financing, as proposed by the SPÖ.

In our experience, abuses are often not ‘isolated cases’, but are due to systemic problems in the use of animals – this is evident from the continuous exposure of the worst animal abuse in Austrian animal factories and slaughterhouses. That is why we are not satisfied with the FPÖ’s response. In its response, the ÖVP unfortunately completely ignores the existing animal abuses. Instead of giving real suggestions for improvement, it only answers with empty sentences.

It is exciting that all parties want to reform the law on animal testing, because unfortunately no attempts have been made to do so up to now. In this area, the suffering and death of countless animals could be reduced without even having to raise the issue of abolishing animal testing. A brand new report shows the legal gaps and scale (“use” of more than 200,000 animals per year – the equivalent of about 550 animals per day) in Austria.

There is a need for reforms prior to animal testing: it can be assumed that the number of animals bred for experiments and then killed as “surplus” is still higher than the number of “used” animals. Unlike in Germany, there is a lack of transparency and reduction measures here. In 2017, together with other animal protection organisations, we criticised the fact that the assessment of whether an animal experiment is justified at all (so-called cost-benefit analysis) in Austria consists only of a subjective assessment by the project applicant and without differentiation according to the purposes of the experiment. Also alarming: as soon as a violation in the field of animal testing is reported, such as the terrible case where a hundred animals died of starvation in a university research laboratory, the perpetrators often cannot be held liable because the law lacks important criminal provisions. After a period of empty words, all parties must certainly take action here!

Unfortunately, everyone’s answers are very vague. “Pious wishes” to independent judges will not help if they apparently take into account the overcrowded prisons with extremely lenient sentences, diversionary tactics or even acquittals. Our long-standing demand to increase the legal penalty for intentional animal abuse, abandonment or murder to a minimum of five years in prison (including a minimum sentence of six months) was again ignored by the government.

But this is the only way that serious animal abuse can ultimately lead to heavy prison sentences of one year or more, which have a deterrent effect on perpetrators and especially on possible future perpetrators (general prevention). After all, animal protection has a constitutional status in our country! The issue must also be taken very seriously, because criminal psychologists have long warned that animal abusers are “just practicing” and then often attack people.