EU denies ordering farmers to buy toys for pigs
Date: 14-Feb-03
Country: CZECH REPUBLIC
Unusual EU directives are a staple of eurosceptic newspapers across the bloc who often brand the European officials as "meddling Eurocrats".
The pig directive was reported as requiring farmers to put a football, metal chains or hay in their pigsties to provide "environmental enrichment" for the animals, to stop the pigs getting bored and attacking each other.
But the EU delegation to the Czech Republic, an EU candidate on track to join the bloc next year, said in a statement this week that its ruling merely demanded that the animals had access to materials like straw or wood to prevent cannibalism.
"Pigs must have permanent access to a sufficient quantity of material to enable proper investigation and manipulation activities, such as straw, hay, wood, sawdust, mushroom compost, peat or a mixture of such, which does not compromise the health of the animals," the statement said.
It specifically denied that farmers would have to buy toys under the directive, which EU member states should follow from the beginning of January this year.
Czech press reports said those who failed to comply would face fines of up to 70,000 crowns ($2,365), or nearly five times the average Czech monthly wage.
Many Czechs have also been outraged by some genuine EU regulations, such as consumer protection rules banning a favourite Czech alcohol from bearing the name 'Rum', because it does not meet EU standards.
But Czechs, who will hold a referendum on EU entry in June, have also fallen for many false rumours, including one alleging that all road signs would have to be repainted to fit a rule that arrows must have a bent shape.
