BERLIN (dpa-AFX) – After the initiative by Federal Minister of Agriculture Julia Klöckner (CDU) for a change in the meat industry, the opposition insists on rapid reforms. The Greens urge the CDU politician not to leave it at announcements. The FDP warns against additional taxes. There are demands from the union camp to ensure better working conditions in the meat industry as quickly as possible by law. After several corona outbreaks in large companies, the – long-standing – criticism of the industry is growing.
Klöckner campaigns for an animal welfare tax and wants to take action against meat dumping prices. She made this clear at a meeting with representatives of the industry. The Minister of Agriculture is pressing for fundamental changes in the meat market in order to stop the constant price war and problematic conditions.
Green party leader Anton Hofreiter said: “There will also be no second chance for the government, it must deliver now”. He was referring to Klöckner’s statement that the industry would not get a second chance. In the newspapers of the Funke Media Group, Hofreiter demanded, among other things, binding animal husbandry and origin labels, such as those that already exist for eggs.
The leader of the Union faction in the Bundestag, Ralph Brinkhaus (CDU), asked retailers to refrain from advertising cheap meat products. “It is not possible that we make decoy offers for shopping with the product meat, for which an animal has always died, by the way,” said Brinkhaus of the “Rheinische Post” (Saturday).
Peasant President Joachim Rukwied also advocates that meat as a valuable food deserves more “appreciation”. This must also be expressed in the prices, he said to the “Passauer Neue Presse” (Saturday). Rukwied warned of “stigmatization” of the animal owners. “They strive every day to offer the animals as much animal welfare as possible in the stables seven days a week, and they produce high-quality, local food for our population.”
In the view of FDP parliamentary group representative Frank Sitta “the simple equation that an increase in meat prices leads directly to more animal welfare, better worker and environmental protection” does not work. Instead, agriculture must become more independent of state subsidies, he told the online edition of the “Passauer Neue Presse” (Saturday): “Additional duties and taxes would also sink more in the general state budget.”
From the point of view of the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB), the federal government must cast the cornerstones of Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) for better working conditions in the meat industry as quickly as possible in the form of a law. “It is clear to everyone: binding rules and laws are now required, no declarations of intent,” said DGB board member Anja Piel of the “Rheinische Post”.
Even before the largest German corona outbreak in the Tönnies slaughterhouse, the cabinet had decided on cornerstones for new regulations in order to prevent problematic working conditions in slaughterhouses. The core is an extensive ban on contracts for work as of January 1, 2021
– So that the complete execution of work at subcontractors
is bought. Heil wants to present a bill in the summer.
Rukwied is concerned about the slaughterhouses that have been temporarily closed due to Corona cases. “The ability of the meat industry to work is of vital importance for agriculture,” he said. “The meat industry must now exhaust all capacities to be able to bring slaughtered animals to slaughter.”
The chef and co-owner of frozen food manufacturer Frosta, Felix Ahlers, urges “urgent” changes in food law. Customers should be able to tell the quality of a food product apart, Ahlers told Die Welt. Only then will there be real competition between manufacturers. A number of additives were no longer called this way, but would be given, for example, as dairy products. All flavored foods should show this on the front of the package
– .
