Explainer: The UK-EU Veterinary Agreement and its implications for animal welfare
- Romy Gelber
- 15 minutes ago
- 7 min read
A veterinary agreement between the UK and EU risks undermining Britain's ability to safeguard animal welfare standards
The UK-EU Common Understanding, published during the May 2025 UK-EU Summit, marks a reset of relations between the UK and EU. Among its provisions is a commitment to establish a comprehensive ‘veterinary agreement’ that would allow “the vast majority of movements of animals, animal products, plants, and plant products between Great Britain and the EU” to occur without the need for certificates or controls.
Animal organisations have raised the alarm about a provision in the proposed Agreement that poses a serious risk to UK animal welfare policy. It stipulates that any deviation from EU food standards must not "negatively affect European Union animals and goods being placed on the market in the United Kingdom". Without specific exemptions, this provision could prevent the UK from blocking EU imports that don't meet British animal welfare standards and may also restrict the UK's ability to apply welfare standards to other countries altogether. This represents a fundamental challenge to the UK's regulatory sovereignty in animal welfare matters.
With negotiations set to recommence this month, below we take a closer look at the proposed veterinary agreement, including what it covers and its possible impact, as well as what the Government must do in the coming months to uphold UK animal welfare standards.
What is a “veterinary agreement” and why is it necessary?
A veterinary agreement is a set of harmonised regulations that standardises requirements across multiple countries or jurisdictions, such as that within the European Union, to facilitate trade. In the UK context, a UK-EU veterinary Agreement would cut red tape that was introduced when the UK left the EU.
The most prominent example of a veterinary agreement is the one established within the EU itself. Some key aspects of the EU's vet agreement include:
EU Animal Health Law which establishes a legal framework for animal health requirements across the EU. It covers prevention and control of animal diseases, animal movements, and certification. For example, The EU-Switzerland Common Food Safety Area agreement requires Switzerland to align its animal health legislation with that of the EU.
Intra-EU trade regulations which remove trade barriers and simplify certification for the movement of animals and animal products between EU countries.
We support efforts to facilitate trade and reduce unnecessary barriers, particularly where this can improve animal welfare outcomes through reduced waiting times at borders and enhanced enforcement to give better disease control. A well-crafted EU-UK Veterinary Agreement presents such an opportunity. However, this should not come at the cost of the UK's ability to also implement welfare-based trade restrictions.
What’s the issue?
As it currently stands, the UK-EU Common Understanding threatens to undermine core UK animal welfare policies like bans on sow stalls and barren battery cages.
The proposed Agreement would require the UK to follow EU rules through "dynamic alignment" - meaning the UK would have to automatically adopt and follow EU rules on which animal products can enter the country, even when these rules change, without having a say in creating those rules.
While the Agreement allows some exceptions to these rules, these exceptions cannot "negatively affect" how EU products are sold in the UK market, and currently only cover public health and biosecurity - not animal welfare. This would prevent restrictions on EU imports, as these could be seen as "negatively affecting" how they are placed on the UK market.
Being prevented from introducing welfare-based import restrictions would undermine the Government's commitment to protecting UK farmers from being undercut by low-welfare imports, disadvantaging those investing in higher welfare systems.
Differences between EU and UK standards:
Pig welfare: Sow stalls remain in use for up to 28 days per cycle in most EU countries, while they have been banned in the UK since 1999. The UK imported 642,297 tonnes of pork from the EU in 2023 - around 50% of domestic consumption - 75% is from EU countries that permit practices banned in Britain.
Foie gras: UK law banned foie gras production by means of force-feeding in 2007. In the EU, it is legal with France dominating global production alongside Hungary. In a pre-election pledge the now Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Steve Reed said that “Labour will ban the import of foie gras that is made following these abhorrent cruel practices”
Fur: The UK has had a ban on fur farming since 2000, but it is still legal in some EU countries. Ruth Jones MP, previous shadow animal welfare minister, introduced a private members bill - the Fur (Import and Sale) Bill in October 2024, which would ban the sale of fur products.
In addition, the UK banned live exports for slaughter or fattening from or through Great Britain in 2024. The transport of live animals within, and their export from, the EU is still legal.
The UK may also be required to accept third-country imports that don’t meet British animal welfare standards
Legal analysis of the Common Understanding suggests a significant concern about other countries: the Agreement may also constrain the UK's ability to apply animal welfare import restrictions to products from “third countries” (outside the EU).
Under the Agreement’s ‘dynamic alignment’ provision, the UK would be required to accept third-country imports that comply with EU rules and are permitted on the EU market, regardless of whether these products meet higher UK animal welfare standards due to reduced border checks. This could significantly reduce the UK's regulatory autonomy in setting ethical production standards for all imports, not just those from the EU.
For example, if Britain cannot ban EU pork from sow stalls (banned domestically since 1999), it would be unable to ban such pork from the United States, Canada, Brazil, or anywhere else producing under similar systems.
The EU-Mercosur Agreement compounds these concerns significantly.
The deal will provide EU market access to beef and other agricultural products from countries where intensive confinement systems remain standard. Brazil, the world's largest beef exporter, operates with welfare standards well below both UK and EU requirements. Under the proposed UK-EU veterinary Agreement's dynamic alignment provisions, Britain would be required to accept these Mercosur products once they enter the EU market, despite their production using methods that would be illegal in the UK.
Why does this matter now?
Recent developments highlight why maintaining flexibility for the UK on imports matters.
The UK has seen significant increases in imports of lower-welfare products, with nearly 60% of pork coming from countries where sow stalls are still permitted. Similarly, in 2023 the UK imported over 281 tonnes of fur products, despite having banned fur farming domestically in legislation since 2000 due to welfare concerns.
Without the ability to restrict imports that don't meet our standards, we risk undermining both domestic legislation and public expectations.
Recent polling shows that:
77% of the British public believe that when we ban a farming practice in the UK for being too cruel, we should also ban imports of products produced the same way overseas.
92% of livestock farmers and 85% of arable farmers back policies restricting low-welfare imports.
What does the Government say about trade and animal welfare?
The Government’s Trade Strategy has a clear commitment to maintaining high food and animal welfare standards, including a specific recognition of concerns around overseas production methods like sow stalls and battery cages that are prohibited in the UK.
Furthermore Defra has also emphasised the importance of considering the potential for simply moving low-welfare production overseas in regards to End the Cage Age, stating, “Replacing a UK egg with an imported caged egg would be bad for the consumer, bad for producers, and bad for animal welfare.”
Defra has also reiterated that it intends to protect farmers in trade deals, and before the election the former environment secretary, Steve Reed, said Labour would “ban the commercial import of foie gras, where ducks and geese are aggressively force-fed”.
Despite these commitments, there's a disconnect between stated intentions and actions. The UK-EU Common Understanding might be preventing the UK from enforcing the welfare-based restrictions that the Trade Strategy identifies as necessary.
Swiss precedent: Securing animal welfare carve-outs
In 2025, Switzerland and the EU agreed to a Common Food Safety Area Protocol ("the Swiss Protocol"). Recognising the importance of animal welfare to Swiss consumers and citizens, Switzerland expressly negotiated to include an effective animal welfare carve-out clause in the Protocol. This carve-out, contained in Article 7 of the Swiss Protocol, secured comprehensive exemptions from dynamic alignment for animal welfare, thereby allowing Switzerland to maintain higher standards whilst still benefiting from reduced trade barriers with the EU.
The EU's acceptance of Switzerland's approach establishes a clear precedent that exemptions to dynamic alignment based on animal welfare objectives are entirely possible within SPS Agreements and do not undermine the broader objectives of regulatory cooperation. In 2025, Switzerland successfully invoked these protections to ban fur imports from cruel farming methods, and to require imported products produced using inhumane methods to be clearly labelled. These advancements in Switzerland's animal welfare standards did not result in any disruption to broader EU-Swiss trade relations.
The UK should seek the inclusion of animal welfare exemptions in the UK-EU SPS Agreement, modelled on the Swiss Protocol. Exemptions should preserve the UK’s ability to implement welfare-based import restrictions on products like fur, foie gras, and meat from production systems banned in Britain (such as sow stalls and battery cages).
Recommendation
To address the above concerns, animal welfare groups are advocating for explicit animal welfare exemptions to dynamic alignment in the UK-EU SPS Agreement, similar to Article 7 of the Swiss Protocol.
Specific exemptions should include:
(1) Farm animal welfare standards,
(2) Animal transport,
(3) Mandatory labelling requirements, and
(4) Import restrictions.
This would allow the UK to maintain its regulatory autonomy and apply welfare-based import restrictions. Without such protections, there is a risk of significant backlash from the British public, who overwhelmingly support strengthening animal welfare standards and restricting low-welfare imports.
