Brussels, 18.11.21. On the occasion of today’s World Antibiotics Day, MEP Manuela Ripa (ÖDP) pointed out the urgency of the correct implementation of the upcoming ban in industrial livestock farming. Ripa and 16 other MEPs addressed a letter to the EU Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Stella Kyriakides. In the letter initiated by Ripa, they demand a timely and comprehensive clarification from the member states. “They must take appropriate measures to implement this vital law even before it comes into force. Otherwise, there will be widespread non-compliance with the law,” Ripa summarises the MEPs’ fears. This also includes the stronger implementation of more species-appropriate husbandry. This, for example through more extensive husbandry, leads to healthier animals and makes the standardised administration of antibiotics obsolete in many cases.

In January 2022, a new EU law on the routine use of antimicrobial agents in factory farming will come into force. Ripa (ÖDP) and the co-signing parliamentarians are campaigning for the direct implementation of the upcoming EU ban. In the letter to the EU Commissioner, the MEPs ask the Commission, among other things, to regularly request concrete measures and plans for the introduction of the law from the member states. For the ÖDP MEP, an immediate implementation of the amendment is “more important than ever in view of the heavy use of antibiotics in industrial livestock farming, in order to prevent antibiotic resistance in humans that can lead to death”.

Every year, 670,000 people in the EU alone fall ill from infections caused by antibiotic-resistant pathogens – 25,000 of them die because even emergency antibiotics no longer help. “Over 60% of antibiotics in the EU are used for farm animals and not for humans. Therefore, it is more important than ever that the EU Commission fully implements the new law and that the use of reserve antibiotics is reserved for humans and humans alone,” says the MEP.

In conclusion, Manuela Ripa adds: “The European Union can and should play a key role in promoting measures to combat antimicrobial resistance. My goal: to put the fight against antimicrobial resistance at the top of the political agenda!”

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