The European Commission announced that it will propose legislation by 2023 to phase out and ban caged animal farming. The gathering of signatures for the End the Cage Age initiative started in September of 2018; it was the sixth successful civil initiative and the first one where the European Commission initiated legislation.
“As the reporter of the European civil initiative, I welcome that the EC has finally decided in favor of a proposal coming from the citizens. At the same time, I find it disappointing that the commission initiates legislation for the protection of animal rights but denied it in the case of the Minority SafePack civil initiative for the protection of minorities. After putting the two decisions of the Commission side by side, one can draw the conclusion: The European Commission says yes to the rights of animals and no to minority rights,” wrote Loránt Vincze, Member of the European Parliament for the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (known by its Hungarian acronym RMDSZ) in his communiqué.
Vincze, who is the president of FUEN (Federal Union of European Nationalities), says that according to the recent decision of the European Commission, their decision in the case of the native national minorities is not only legally and professionally wrong but also unworthy, discriminatory and exceptionally cynical.
On the initiative of RMDSZ and coordinated by FUEN, the Minority SafePack civil initiative is about the rights of 50 million citizens of the European Union “but the Commission did not find the case important enough.” Vincze drew attention to the fact that after the European Commission decided that it will not initiate legislation according to the proposals of the Minority SafePack, the initiators turned to the Court of Justice of the European Union asking for the annulment of the decision of the Commission.
There could be another proposal concerning minorities on the table of the European Commission soon because, after the validation of the signatures, they will also have to deal with the initiative started for aid for national regions, reminded the MEP in his communiqué.
Featured photo: Loránt Vincze
