AnimalhealthEurope welcomes the Danish Presidency Work Programme and presents its recommendations

AnimalhealthEurope welcomes the Presidency of the Council of the European Union by Denmark, starting on 1 July 2025, extends its best wishes for a successful term, and expresses its readiness to cooperate closely on shared priorities.

In particular, we particular we look forward to working with you on:

1) The call for targeted joint and national actions to boost the EU’s competitiveness.

The Danish Presidency suggest reforms that improve conditions for businesses to grow and strengthen their prerequisites for innovating and investing in new technology, skills, production and jobs; notes that the green transition can and should drive growth, and climate and energy policies should continue to be closely linked to competitiveness policy, and that the life science sector promotes both health and growth in the EU.

• AnimalhealthEurope has several proposals to support the competitiveness of our, understandably, highly regulated sector, by optimising some of the reporting requirements.
• The animal health sector wishes to constructively contribute to the process of simplification of the reporting requirements, including through the Omnibus Proposals.
• The Animal health sector wishes to constructively contribute to improving the competitiveness and presence of the biotechnology sector in the EU, and welcomes the focus that the Presidency will place on the upcoming EU Biotech Act.
• We count on the Danish Presidency to give our sector the means to focus on our core business: better protecting Europe against animal diseases today, preventing the zoonoses of tomorrow.

2) Tackling animal disease outbreaks

As rightly mentioned by the Danish presidency, European farmers face increasing outbreaks of communicable animal diseases and new plant pests, threatening farming operations, finances, public health, and international trade.

• AnimalhealthEurope strongly supports the Danish Presidency’s intention to focus on identifying potential solutions to this challenge.
• AnimalhealthEurope also calls for the creation of a structured “Veterinary Dialogue” between the Member States Competent authorities, the EU Institutions, the animal health sector, and relevant stakeholders to address these challenges in a swift and coordinated manner.
• AnimalhealthEurope highlights that financing is an obstacle to better animal disease prevention, and therefore calls for stimulating R&D in new vaccines and technologies, for example through public procurement by the creation of new vaccine banks and the creation of dedicated support to farmers who choose to vaccinate their animals.
• AnimalhealthEurope welcomes the preparedness approach promoted by the Danish Presidency. We believe that preparedness should be favoured , also in the area of animal health, e.g. through vaccination and parasite control.
• AnimalhealthEurope highlights that trade restrictions can be an important obstacle to vaccination and therefore calls on the Presidency, together with the Member States and the Commission to use their animal health diplomacy to lift these barriers.

3) Adoption of the One Health approach

The Danish Presidency proposes to address the challenge of AMR through a One Health approach, linking animal and human health

• AnimalhealthEurope agrees but would like to highlight that adopting a One Health approach should apply not just when addressing AMR, but that the positive contributions of animal health should also be recognised, e.g.: for reducing food production emissions, reducing the use of natural resources, and also reducing food losses.
• AnimalhealthEurope wishes to highlight that thanks to a coordinated approach in the Livestock sector to reduce the sales of antibiotics, a.o. through our awareness-raising actions (approximately half of the 50% reduction target set for 2030 was already achieved according to 2023 data in the Annual Surveillance Report on the European sales and use of antimicrobials in veterinary medicine (ESUAvet).
• This is why we are calling for a One Health Strategy to be developed, beyond AMR.

4) Work around the topic of Critical Medicines

Although the current Critical Medicines proposal relates to human medicines,

• to truly ensure health security in Europe, AnimalhealthEurope believes it is crucial to adopt a One Health approach and asks the Danish Presidency to consider any unintended consequences of such measures that may negatively impact animal health and, consequently, human health, particularly concerning zoonotic diseases.

5) The need for a single market focused on animal, human and plant health

For the Danish Presidency animal welfare should be placed high on the agenda.

• AnimalhealthEurope agrees, in particular we welcome the objective of negotiating, and hopefully finalising, the proposal for a Regulation on the welfare and traceability of dogs and cats.

6) A sustainable food system, supporting the resilience of the livestock sector

European protein supply is rightly mentioned as being vital for the development of plant-based foods, raw materials for the livestock sector, and the diversification of supply sources. It is also an important element in the transition towards a more sustainable food system. The Presidency states it will focus on the potential of a common EU action plan for plant-based foods and a common EU protein strategy.

• AnimalhealthEurope calls for acknowledgement of the essential role livestock farming plays in circular agriculture and requests that the EU protein strategy be extended to include animal proteins.

7) Clarification on future chemicals legislation

The Presidency announced that it will be ready to start negotiations on the European chemicals legislation (REACH), aiming to modernise and simplify it to better support sustainable production and consumption of chemicals, while ensuring European consumer products are free from hazardous chemicals and unnecessary PFAS.

• AnimalhealthEurope calls on the Presidency to ensure that the future REACH and PFAS restrictions do not prohibit or restrict the research, development, production and availability of human and veterinary medicines due to regulatory restrictions, and that the European Medicines Agency’s “benefit-risk” approach prevails for the approval of medicines.

8) Strengthening and deepening the EU’s relationship with the UK, in particular in the current fast-evolving trade environment

Building on the EU-UK summit of 19 May 2025 we agree with the Danish Presidency that there needs to be continued positive development of the EU’s relationship with the UK with a focus on achieving concrete results.

• AnimalhealthEurope particularly welcomes the SPS agreement. Although we acknowledge that veterinary medicines do not usually form part of the SPS agreement, we wish to see a veterinary medicines chapter included in the to be negotiated agreement.
• AnimalhealthEurope also calls on Member States and the Commission to ensure that animal health products are not listed among the list of products subject to retaliatory tariffs from the EU against the United States.