A heated debate took place in the Polish Sejm concerning the “Five for Animals” bill, which introduces more protection for animals. The case divided the members of the United Right coalition. The vote on the bill is most likely to take place this evening.
The Sejm agricultural committee debated on the so-called “Five for Animals” bill until 7 am.
“It’s 6:13 in the morning, we have been sitting at the agricultural commission since 8:30 pm fighting against the anti-farmers project of the Law and Justice, Democratic Left Alliance and Civic Platform parties. It is a project written by people who do not know how farms work in reality, it is inconsistent, and representatives of the ruling party are compromised every minute by lawyers from the Legislative Office. The fight for agriculture has only began”, tweeted Robert Winnicki from the Confederation party.
MPs of the Law and Justice party rejected the amendment proposed by the United Poland and Agreement parties which would introduce the ban on fur farming no sooner than in 10 years. 35 MPs of the ruling party voted against the bill, including all MPs of United Poland. 15 MPs of the ruling party abstained from voting, while 20 MPs did not participate in the voting procedure at all. This bill is yet another project of the Law and Justice party which, just as the bill on the impunity of government officials during the COVID-19 epidemic, became the bone of contention for the United Right. The Agreement party is also not entirely convinced by some of the points of this project.
“If our amendments are not included in the bill, United Poland will not be able to support it”, said Jan Kanthak of the United Poland party.
The ritual slaughter of animals, as the leader of the ruling party announced, was to be lowered to a minimum, however this point was removed from the project. MPs of the ruling party state that it was included by mistake. According to the initial version of the project, ritual slaughter will be legal in Poland only for religious regions, as well as export of meat coming from this kind of slaughter. Regular farmers will be banned from such exports.
“The possibility of such slaughter for Polish Religious Unions will be retained. I’m not a member of the commission, I wasn’t present at the session so I cannot say what happened there word for word, but we intend to vote for an amendment bringing back this law at today’s session of the Sejm”, commented Radosław Fogiel, the deputy spokesman for the Law and Justice party.
The Sejm agricultural commission will convene in the matter of the bill once more. Voting is planned for this evening, but it is possible that it will take place tomorrow.