Slaughterhouses will have to install cameras to ensure animal welfare and food safety
Meat packing industry has a year to implement new Spanish government measure
Slaughterhouses in Spain now have a year to install cameras on their premises.
The measure – a first in the EU – was approved by the Spanish government on Tuesday during the weekly cabinet meeting and aims to safeguard both animal welfare and food safety norms are complied with.
Video surveillance systems will be required in areas with live animals as well as where they are stunned and killed and at unloading points. These images will have to be kept and provided to regional food safety inspectors in the event they are requested.
"This places Spain at the head of Europe in this regard," Spanish minister for consumer affairs Alberto Garzón said. "In addition to guaranteeing the wellbeing of animals during their stay in slaughterhouses, it also improves food safety."
Garzón famously encouraged Spaniards to reduce their meat consumption for environmental reasons last summer with remarks that were harshly criticized by the industry, prompting PM Pedro Sánchez to profess his love for medium-rare steak.
Animal welfare in Spain
This new regulation comes months after a Spanish law came into effect declaring animals "sentient beings."
Spain's left-wing Socialist-Unidas Podemos coalition cabinet also recently passed a bill approving stricter penalties for abusing, abandoning, or euthanizing otherwise healthy animals that is yet to be greenlighted by Congress.
Barcelona, an animal-friendly city
The Catalan capital has long been at the forefront of the animal rights movement. In late 2002 it became the first municipality in Spain to stop putting healthy shelter animals, as well as those with treatable illnesses, to sleep; two years later the council famously declared the city to be against bullfighting.
Catalonia followed suit on both fronts: in 2008 all of its shelters became no-kill, while in 2010 it outlawed bullfighting. While Spain's Constitutional Court overturned the ban, there have not been any bullfights in Catalonia since 2011.
And although bullfighting is, for now, here to stay in other parts of Spain, the country could seems poised to take steps in the same direction when it comes to no-kill shelters.