On March 17 2014, PFPO had a meeting in the European Commission in Brussels with the Head of the Unit Animal Welfare, Andrea GAVINELLI and Policy Co-ordinator Animal Welfare, Paolo Felice DALLA VILLA.
In this meeting we presented our letter to them addressing issues such as the barrel-dogs, the poisoning of the fauna, the uncontrolled births of the owned pets and the farm animals.
The meeting was very constructive and we took the opportunity to thoroughly present the conditions of the companion and the farm animals in our country.
The Commissioner showed particular interest in the barrel-dogs and discussed the negative impact on our tourism.
Mr. Gavinelli was asked to assist our nationwide campaign our Federation is preparing for the chained animals and the barrel-dogs. He was aware of the situation of farm animals for which our country has already been convicted due for not implementing the European legislation.
During the meeting it became apparent that he issue of the strays overpopulation in Europe is still far from its solution but efforts are made to form a European legislation for pets and the uniformity of their management by the EU Member States, especially those with deviant behavior.
According to their estimates the pets EU members states are over than 100,000,000 and the method of neutering the strays appear to have failed to stem the problem for various reasons.
Finally, we were informed that, on 18 March 2014(the next day) sitting of the European Parliament were to vote on the opinion of the Agricultural and Rural development Committee on stray animals in EU Member States.
Our Federation acted immediately by submitting a letter to Greek MEPs in the Committee, Mr. c. Papastamko and p. Daneli with our positions on the issue of strays in Greece and our suggestions for the solution.