Policy Dynamics and Political Deadlock: The Stalled Transformation of the EU’s Farm Animal Welfare Policymaking

The food production sector is confronted with substantial challenges arising from its environmental and climatic impacts. Many of these challenges were addressed in the Farm to Fork Strategy, introduced by the EU in 2020 as part of its broader efforts to promote a sustainable and resilient food system. Farm animal welfare plays a crucial role in the context of intensive livestock farming and within the depicted transformation processes – also due to the growing interconnection between animal and human health, which becomes particularly evident in the case of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). While the former EU Commission has agreed to implement quite far-reaching reforms in the area of farm animal welfare (e.g., the phasing out of cages as a response to a European Citizen Initiative (ECI)), in the current legislative period these reforms are completely on hold. Applying the policy dynamics framework, we seek to analyze the processes behind this standstill and the potential consequences with regard to an increasing divergence at the member states level. Building on expert interviews with MEPs we trace the current policy dynamics in the European Parliament and in the European Commission to better understand the dynamics that cause this apparent stalemate. The findings from our research suggest, that the political majorities in the current EP coupled with a week Commission (being challenged by the EP at all times) result in a standstill no