The European Commission will reinforce the environmental requirements in pig, poultry and cattle farms, leaving extensive livestock farming out of the scope of application. The final text will be voted on during the Spanish presidency of the Council of the EU in the second half of the year. The 27 have agreed that the number of heads on which the regulations will apply will be 350 heads for cattle and pigs, 280 heads on poultry farms and 350 on mixed farms.
The European Commissioner, Virginijus Sinkevicius, warned that the amendments introduced by the countries considerably lower the ambition of the Commission’s proposal and stressed that the directive will only affect “less than 3% of cattle farms”.
The directive covers 50,000 facilities in the EU (some 30,000 industrial infrastructures and 20,000 pig and poultry farms) that generate polluting emissions of methane, ammonia, sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, particles, mercury and other heavy metals.
