The Centre for Environmental Law and Policy organised a high-level conference under this title, in January 1995, in a successful attempt to di.scover a degree of common ground between animal welfare and conservation interests in Europe. In particular, as this report shows, it explored the possibility of reviving the proposed Zoo Directive, shelved by the EC Commission in 1994, in the face of UK government opposition based on "subsidi.arity", as the best means of ensuring adequate animal welfare standards, conducive to efficient operation of their ex situ conservation programmes, in zoos across Europe.
Since the conference, the new Environment Commissioner, Ritt Bjerregaard, has stated to the European Parliament's Environment Committee, on 10 April, that "it is essential to put in place a set of rules to protect animals. If Parliament believes that this goal can only be reached by means of a Directive, then I think that's what we will have to try". This gives some hope that the appeal, described in this article, made by (the now, sadly deceased) Sir James ScottHopkins, former Conservative MEP and Rapporteur for the Directive in that Committee, that it should be revived will be fulfilled. The hosting by the Centre of the first exploratory meeting, on 16 May 1995, between zoo and animal welfare experts to explore the existence of further common ground; plans for a book on the subject by Fiona Deal, presently a stagiaire with the Commission's Legal Services, and imminent legal challenges to the UK Government's interpretation of EC law on the welfare of live animals in transit through the Community, are also encouraging signs in this respect.
European Energy and Environmental Law Review