Thomas Schröder, President of the German Animal Welfare Federation, comments on the appointment of Ariane Kari as the German government's first animal welfare commissioner:
"We congratulate Ariane Kari on her new office. As the German Animal Welfare Federation, we are happy to offer active, constructive and solution-oriented cooperation.
The range of topics that urgently need to be addressed in animal welfare is broad. Animal welfare is a classic cross-sectional task that requires the involvement of all federal government departments. We therefore rely on the Federal Animal Welfare Commissioner not only seeing herself as part of the BMEL, but also taking every opportunity to raise awareness of animal welfare issues in other departments and initiate improvements.
The office of the Federal Animal Welfare Commissioner offers a great opportunity to identify the gaps in animal welfare legislation more strongly than before, to bundle broad public support for greater animal welfare and to force change. We also hope that the office will ensure that legislative changes that are not conducive to animal welfare are not simply waved through silently - as was the case today in the Agriculture Committee with the amendment to ban the killing of chicks."
Note to editors: The creation of a Federal Animal Welfare Commissioner is a long-standing demand of the German Animal Welfare Federation. The traffic light coalition had promised to create such an office in the coalition agreement. With the current campaign "Now more animal protection!", the German Animal Welfare Federation provides information on which announcements from the coalition agreement have already been addressed and where there are only empty promises so far: www.jetzt-mehr-tierschutz.de
