Report from the Commission on the identification and registration of animals
COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES Brussels, 17. 04. 1998 COM(1998) 207 final REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION on the identification and registration of animals REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION ON THE IDENTIFICATION AND REGISTRATION OF ANIMALS A. GENERAL ASPECTS 1 2 3 4 Directive 92/102/EEC Data sources Transposition of the legislation Identification of bovine animals 5 B. OVINE/CAPRINE AND PORCINE ANIMALS 1 2 3 Identification of Ovine and caprine animals Identification of porcine animals Overall main remarks C. POSSIBLE IMPROVEMENTS 1 2 Needs and possible options Guidance scheme Annex J Annex II Livestock distribution by Member State Directive 92/102/EEC - Transposition status 1 * 1^ 2 3 7 1 10 13 16 16 18 IDENTIFICATION AND REGISTRATION OF ANIMALS The present report from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament has been elaborated in the framework of the provisions of Article 10 of Directive 92/102/EEC. It aims at stating the experience gained, and drawing conclusions, on identification and registration of animals in the European Union. It focuses on ovine/caprine and porcine animals as the case of bovine has just been dealt with by Council Regulation (EC) No 820/97' establishing a system for the identification and registration of bovine animals and regarding the labelling of beef and beef products. A. GENERAL ASPECTS 1. Directive 92/102/EEC The Council Directive 92/102/EEC on the identification and registration of animals has two basic objectives: the localisation and the tracing of animals for veterinary purposes, which is of crucial importance for the control of contagious diseases; the management and supervision of livestock premiums as part of the reform of the agricultural policy. To deal with these objectives the productive livestock must be adequately identified and registered according to the same requirements in all Member States. Directive 92/102/EEC applies^ to bovine, ovine, caprine, and porcine animals and rules have been laid down: 1 O. J. L 355, 27. 11. 1992, p. 32 2 O. J. L 117, 21. 04. 1997, p. 1 The provisions related to the bovine animals are now revoked and replaced by the provisions foreseen by the new Regulation. 1 *> to keep an up-to-date list of the holdings in each Member State(Arficle 3); to keep registers of the animals at the level of the holdings, including information for all births, deaths and movements(Article 4); to identify, according to several principles and possible derogation, the different types of animals of a Member State;(Article 5); to keep track of animals in case of exchange between Member States, and, in particular, the possibility to replace the eartag or the other identification mark with a modification of the initial code;(Article 6) to identify imported animals without losing the trail of previous identification marks. (Article 8) Article 10 of Directive 92/102/EEC stipulates that: "Not later than 31 December 1996, acting on the basis of a report from the Commission, accompanied by any proposals, on which it will decide by a qualified majority the Council, shall, in the. light of experience gained, review the provisions of this Directive with a view to defining a harmonised identification and registration system and shall decide on the possibility of introducing electronic identification arrangements in the light of progress achieved in this field by the International Organisation for Standardisation(ISO)". 2. Data sources To draft this report Commission, by letters sent to the Member States, asked for relevant information and state of things on the following: Identification system of bovine, porcine and ovine animals Registration of animals on the holding Central registration of animals Systems of individual "passports" Electronic identification The data collection was concluded by the end of 1996, integrating though relevant information until recently. However, in some cases the data were incomplete. In particular, two Member States, Spain and Belgium, have only sent copies of their current legislation without replying to the Commission's specific questions. Furthermore, the Commission used the available DG XXIV(veterinary inspection services)4 reports, where they dealt with this subject, and the reports related to the Integrated Administration and Control System drawn by the EAGGF3. However, as far as EAGGF reports are concerned, it should be noted that : in several occasions the data provided by this source were not up to date; these reports refer only to "premium" animals and, therefore, do not include data concerning the porcine species, or do not refer to all production categories of bovine or ovine/caprine animals. In addition, consultations took place with representatives of farm associations, and a working group of private experts was established to examine the identification and registration system of ovine/caprine animals, as well as of porcine animals. Despite the efforts, some information is missing and the analysis of several aspects has not been fulfilled as precisely as wished. 3. Transposition of the legislation Member States had to transpose Directive 92/102/EEC for the whole livestock described in Annexe I of the present report. The basic livestock population concerns about 85 million bovines. 110 million ovine/caprine and 115 million porcine animals. Every year, the Food and Veterinary Office European Agriculture Guidance and Guarantee Fund identification system has to deal with the replacements of slaughtered animals, that is about 30 million bovines, 80 million ovine/caprine and 190 million porcine animals. Thus, the initial work of identification is more or less the same in the three sectors but the annual work is more important for ôvine/caprine (about 3 times) and for porcine (about 6 times) than for bovine animals. On the basis of the average number of animals per holding, the main effort has to be done: • • • by Luxembourg, United Kingdom, Ireland, Belgium and the Netherlands for bovine; by United Kingdom, Ireland, Spain and Ellas for ovine/caprine; by Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany for porcine animals. Article 11 of Directive 92/102/EEC provide for transposition of the legislation by October 1993 for bovine animals, by January 1994 for porcine animals and by January 1995 for ovine and caprine animals. As shown in Annexe II, the transposition of the directives into national law was largely incorrect as far as the deadlines were concerned. For bovine animals, Member States were generally 2 years late. Only Belgium and the Netherlands had their transposition done in due time, by the end of 1993. The last modification has taken place in 1996. For porcine animals, Belgium had, already in 1990, national legislation on identification. The three other Member States with the main production, as well as Portugal, have transposed the Directive into national law by the year of 1994 following the foreseen deadline. Most of the other Member States were 1 or 2 years late and Finland has not yet finished its transposition. For ovine and caprine animals, the deadline of 1995 was respected by Denmark and Portugal. The transposition was completed the following year, in 1995, by Austria, Sweden, Luxembourg, Ellas and Germany. The main producers that are the United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain have transposed the Directive in 1996. France and Finland have not yet finished this transposition, but planned to do it in 1997. 4. Identification of bovines As regards the identification of bovines, compliance with the Directive 92/102/EEC means mainly: • • the competent authority has an up-to-date list of all the holdings which keep animals and that list must specify the species kept and their keepers; eartags must be applied on the animals not later than 30 days after birth. However, provisional approved marks may be kept up to the age of-six months; and some calves intended for slaughter before the age of six months may leave the holding of their birth to be marked at the fattening holding; • the eartag should bear an alphanumeric code, which shall not exceed 14 characters, in order to identify each animal individually along with the holding on- which it was bom; • in the case where a mark has to be replaced, a link should be established between the new and the old mark; • identification within 30 days of all animals imported from third countries, establishing a link between the identification mark of the third country and the identification allocated by the Member State of destination; that identification is not compulsory if the animal is slaughtered within 30 days in the importing Member State; • a register has to be kept at the level of the holder, stating the number of animals present, and an up-to-date record of all births, deaths and movements, at least on the basis of aggregate movements; • the keeper of animals to be moved to or from a market, or collection centre, must provide a document to the operator who is a keeper of animals, setting out, on a temporary basis, details of the animals, including the identification numbers or marks. Regarding compliance with Directive 92/102/EEC, nine(9) Member States may be considered as having completed the minimum level of implementation. The Netherlands is quite advanced in relation to the Directive 92/102/EEC provisions. Belgium has already implemented double marking of the animals and their "SANITEL"6 identification and registration system is close to the one provided by the new Regulation on the identification and registration system of the bovine animals. As far as identification documents are concerned, the majority of the Member States ask only for accompanying documents. However Sweden has in use movement documents that are not properly certified by an official veterinarian and not sent to the central authorities. Denmark uses two certificates ("IBR" and "BVD"). On a higher level of implementation of the community rules, Ireland and Portugal require identity cards while passports are already in use in Great Britain. In Northern Ireland a computerised movement record is working. Ellas, Finland, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Sweden show deficiencies of implementation of Directive 92/102/EEC in relation to either: • • • the central register which deals in some cases only with premium animals, or the keeping of the register on the holding, or the existence of an applied eartag system for all bovine animals. Therefore, around 20% of the bovine livestock were not complying with the requirements of Directive 92/102/EEC. However, as regards to the bovine species, the recently adopted Council Regulation (EC) No 820/97 already improves the requirements related to the system of identification and registration. This Regulation reinforces the provisions of Directive 92/102/EEC as follows: • • an eartag must be applied on each ear; eartags which have become illegible or have been lost, must be replaced by a new mark, bearing the same code as the original tag; a passport should be issued within 14 days of the notification of an animal's birth; "SANITEL" identification and registration system which is in use in Belgium comprises elements as: - oval plastic eartag (country code+holding number+individual number) approved by the Ministry of Agriculture ; - registration forms which are computerised; - holding registration will cover all animals present at the holding. a computerised database must become fully operational no later than 31 December 1999; the up-to-date holding register shall comprise data on births, deaths and all movements; B. OVINE/CAPRINE AND PORCINE ANIMALS 1. Identification of Ovines and caprines In accordance with the Council Directive 92/102/EEC, by 1. 1. 95, Member States should have in place an identification and registration system for ovine/caprine animals that should comprise: • an up-to-date list of all the holdings which keep more than three animals; •. a holding register recording at least aggregate movements and the total number of sheep and goats present each year on a date to be determined by the competent authority; •. identification marks (eartag or tattoo), determining at least the holding of origin and the holding on which the animal was born, applied on animals as soon as possible and in any case before leaving the holding of birth; In relation to the registration of movements, Member States had the possibility to apply their national systems, provided that they have communicated them to the Commission by 1. 7. 1994 for eventual approval or amendments. There was no notification of this kind brought to the attention of the relevant Commission services. Animals bearing a temporary mark must be accompanied throughout their movement by a document which enables the origin, ownership, place of departure and destination to be determined. The implementation of the community rules is more or less completed in nine(9) Member States. It is mainly deficient in Italy and Portugal where holding registers are not kept on every holding, and in Ellas, Finland, and France, where, in addition to that, identification marks are not placed in all the required cases. In United Kingdom the implementation is not extended to Northern Ireland. Therefore, around 40% of the ovine/caprine livestock are not complying with the requirements of Directive 92/102/EEC, including the Hellenic and the British livestock which are among the most numerous within European Union. 1. 1 List of holdings Each Member State has a registration system of holdings keeping sheep and goats. However, for at least half of them it is restricted to holdings with ovine or caprine animals entitled to the premium grant. In these cases, the lists nearly cover the provisions of Directive 92/102/EEC, but not its full extent. Moreover, as it is not legally required, in most cases the lists are not centralised and computerised and it cannot be insured they are always up to date. Furthermore, the information given on each holding and the animals kept is very dissimilar between Member States and sometimes within the same Member State. Only Denmark already has a central register of all holdings, providing a lot of data which may be cross checked via other data sources. Important information may be found about the keeper, the type and use of the animals, the number of animals, the practitioner veterinarian responsible, the disease status and any imports or exports. The SACRIMO computer system in United Kingdom includes all the holdings concerned in the biggest part of its territory but it does not give any movement records of animals. The SANITEL system of Belgium is under upgrading, it is limited though to holdings included within the premium scheme. Other centralised databases are foreseen or under development in most of the other Member States. In some of these cases the present manual or computerised regional systems should be deeply reconsidered to harmonise their registers if they should be put together in a national or European framework. 1. 2 Register on the holding Holding registers, complying with the provisions foreseen in Council Directive 92/102/EEC have been fully implemented in nine(9) Member States. The registers exist only for some categories of holdings in France, Italy, Finland, Portugal, Sweden and United Kingdom. In Finland, Portugal and Sweden they are kept on the holdings involved in the premium scheme which is not far from all holdings. but do not cover all ovine and caprine animals. In United Kingdom they are implemented in Great Britain but not in Northern Ireland. In France and Italy they are poorly implemented, restricted to the necessity of the Brucellosis eradication programme in the latter case. As it is not compulsory, in six(6) Member States, the registers are not of the same model across the entire country which makes impossible some cumulative information. They just state the situation on a certain day of the year, and aggregate movements, in the cases of Austria, Germany and Spain. A lot of useful details on individual animals are missing in registers kept in Austria, Ellas, Ireland, Italy and United Kingdom. So, the registers provide generally very basic information as far as the disease control is concerned. Keeping track of individual animals is impossible in most cases. 1. 3 Identification marks The application of identification marks on every ovine or caprine animal which leaves its holding of birth is performed in ten(10) Member States. The provision is not applied in Finland, where only imported animals bear a mark, in France and in Northern Ireland. In Belgium mainly the animals eligible to premium support arrangements are subject to identification marking. In Ellas, only adult animals involved in the Brucellosis eradication programme and which are leaving the holding are marked. France, since 1 September 1997, has put in force a new national Decree of 30. 05. 97 regarding the identification of ovine animals. However, this Decree is not yet formally notified to Commission. The identification means chosen by Member States is mainly the eartag. Six of them apply only that, and only Portugal has not authorised it, prescribing the tattoo. Four Member States, accept both eartags or tattoos, while Italy places both eartag and tattoo on the same animal. United Kingdom and Ireland accept also temporary marks as "painting" mark resulting into a completely unreliable identification providing no data at all on the origin of the animal. In all Member States implementing these provisions, the animals are identified only if they are going to leave the holding. The identification mark scarcely provides all the useful data as country code, holding number, individual number. Only Italy seems to have in place an appropriate system. 2. Identification of Porcine animals In accordance with the Council Directive 92/102/EEC, by 1. 1. 94, Member States should have in place an identification and registration system for porcine animals which should comprise: • an up-to-date list of all the holdings which keep more than one pig not intended for the keeper's own use or consumption; • a holding register stating the number of animals present on the holding including data on movements; special provisions for the case of pure-bred and hybrid pigs which may be covered by an alternative registration system; • identification marks (eartag or tattoo) determining at least the holding or origin and the holding on which the animal was born, applied on animals at least before leaving the holding of birth; In relation to the registration of movements, Member States had the possibility to apply their national systems, provided that they have communicated them to the Commission by 1. 7. 1993 for eventual approval or amendments. There was no notification of this kind brought to the attention of the relevant Commission services. Animals bearing; a 10 temporary mark must be accompanied throughout their movement by a document which enables the origin, ownership, place of departure and destination to be determined. The implementation of the Community rules is more or less completed in twelve(12) Member States. Main deficiencies are found in Ellas and in Finland. A little information is available for Portugal. Therefore, around only 4% of the porcine livestock is not complying with the requirements of the 92/102/EEC Directive. 2. 1 L ist of h oldings Each Member State has a registration system of holdings keeping pigs. However, for at least one third of them it is restricted either to large holdings or to regional schemes. Moreover, as it is not legally required, in most cases the lists are not centralised and computerised and it cannot be insured they are always up to date. Furthermore, the information given on each holding and the animals kept is very dissimilar between Member States and sometimes within the same Member State. Only the Netherlands has already a central computerised register of all holdings, providing information on the holding number , the holding of origin, the holding of destination and the eartag number of the animals. The PRIMO computer system in United Kingdom include all the holdings concerned in the biggest part of its territory but it does not give any movement records of animals. The SANITEL system of Belgium is applied but being under upgrading. Centralised databases are foreseen or under development in most of the other Member States. In some of these cases the present manual or computerised regional systems should be deeply reconsidered to harmonise their registers if they should be put together in a national or European framework. 11 2. 2 Register on the holding Holding registers complying with the provisions foreseen in Council Directive 92/102/EEC have been fully implemented in eleven(l 1) Member States. Detailed information on births, deaths and movements is recorded in The Netherlands and in Austria. Additionally, Austria provides for a uniform national model of farm registers. The registers exist only for some categories of holdings in Ellas and in Finland, and they are not used on a compulsory basis in Portugal. As it is not compulsory, in three(3) Member States, i. e. Germany, Italy and Sweden, the registers are not of the same model throughout the whole country which makes some cumulative data impossible. Therefore, the registers provide generally very basic data as far as the disease control is concerned. Keeping track of individual animals is impossible in most cases. 2. 3 Identification marks The application of identification marks on every porcine animal which leaves its holding of birth is performed in twelve(12) Member States. The provision is not applied in Finland, where only imported animals bear eartags, and in Ellas. For Portugal, the Commission had no available information. The identification means chosen by Member States is mainly the eartag, but the choice for a tattoo is possible in some cases in Denmark and in France. It is only Italy which requires the tattoo. The Dutch system also provides for the possibility of electronic identification but information is not available as far as its implementation is concerned. In most Member States concerned, the animals are identified only in case of leaving the holding. In Germany an eartag is fitted at the latest at the time of weaning, including data on the country code and an individual number for each animal. In The Netherlands, animals are identified before the age of six months or earlier if they are sold or otherwise transferred. 12 However, piglets moving to a fattening unit are not always identified, at least in Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden. Pigs leaving the holding to be slaughtered are just slap- tattooed in Denmark and in France; and moved without identification marks in Germany and Sweden. The identification mark scarcely provides all the useful data as country code, holding number, individual number. 3. Overall Main Remarks The transposition of the European rules was late as far as the deadlines are concerned. In some cases the implementation procedure is not already completed, especially in Ellas, Finland and Portugal. The text of the Directive 92/102/EEC allows for lots of''flexible" interpretations which were highly used, resulting in several, incompatible, identification and registration systems. The situation is now mainly characterised by a lack of harmonisation, a diversity between Member States and even within the same Member State for most of them, which can not guarantee proper and adequate means for tracing diseases as it would have been necessary during the BSE crisis. The most important points which cause identification problems, from a veterinary point of view, are described hereafter: 3. 1 the list of holdings The list of all holdings, specifying the species kept and their keepers, is a provision of Directive 92/102/EEC which is not applied in all Member States in an efficient way. 13 Even in the cases where all farms are registered, the national list is frequently dispatched at regional levels, with different data or different method of assembling the data. These discrepancies make impossible to centralise the information, even at a national level. In most Member States there is no control concerning the reliability of the information and the permanent up-dating of the local lists. As a result of these deficiencies, the information system is responding slowly to any enquiry and can not ensure neither the presence of the data requested nor their accuracy. It can not be used to centralise the data and can not provide for any statistical analysis. It is of few, if any, help for tracing diseases or other veterinary purposes. In order to improve the system all the national registration lists should be computerised in a compatible way, at national and EU level. Furthermore, the requirements of Directive 92/102/EEC should be specified and completed to promote the feasibility of the disease tracing. The data which should be available everywhere should be, as a rninimum: - obviously the address of the holding and the name of the keeper, - the registration number of the holding, - the type of production in order to sort out the farms if needed, and - the number of animals kept at a certain date. 3. 2 the register of each holding Member States have generally tried to cover the current requirements at their minimum extent. However, farm registers are not kept in all holdings and there is no control performed on behalf of the competent authority. It is quite common that these registers are not uniform and vary a lot on their form within a Member State and definitely, as it is not yet provided for, within the European Union. To know the number of animals kept each year on a certain date is not sufficient for disease control matters. The register should at least include complete data on births, deaths and movements on a daily, or very short term, basis, in order to make possible checking of the 14 movements during animal disease crises. In addition, a proper control system, should be established to ensure reliability. The information included in movement documents varies a lot among Member States. Frequently the document can not give a record of all movements performed nor the number and address of the holding of origin. In the case of a dead animal,' or in the case of a movement to a slaughter house, the document is often lost as it is not quite clear whose responsibility is to send it to the competent authority. These documents and their use should be improved on a European Union basis as they are an important identification element stating data which are implicit for any disease control research. 3. 3 the identification marks The Directive 92/102/EEC does not specify the type of the identification marks to be used. Therefore, in many cases particularly for sheep and goats the means for identifying the animals is just a paint marking procedure which does not ensure an appropriate identification as it can not distinguish among different holdings of birth. In these cases the origin of the animals remains always difficult to determine. An other difficulty of the determination of the origin arises from the replacement of identification eartag. If there is a necessity of replacement, in case of a loss for example, the new eartag should bear identical data to the previous one. The possibility for an alphanumeric code was not interpreted in the same way in all Member States. At the EU level, it results to a system of data which are not perceptible all over EU, and research on the origin of animals becomes complicated, and unreliable. The necessity to identify animals '* as soon as possible" was always interpreted by Member states to the extreme meaning that animals should be marked only before leaving the holding of origin, or even only before leaving a holding for slaughter. That system might work, if reliable, for meat traceability purposes but not for disease traceability or other veterinary purposes. 15 C. Possible improvements I. Needs and possible options The need for an effective identification network is not dictated solely by management or control considerations. It is indispensable in the event of an epizootic and not having one can prove very costly or result in major crises when there is a threat to public health. Despite the efforts deployed in all the Member States, however, the situation generally is not satisfactory. The systems already in place are of little or no value from a veterinary standpoint, either because of their inherent weaknesses or their lack of compatibility at European or in some cases national level. Experience has shown how difficult it is to introduce an operational system. On the other hand there is no point in adopting half-measures or making superficial adjustments or improvements to systems which in any case cannot provide a traceability function. In essence, if the objectives of an identification system are to be attained, a choice must be made among three options: • strict identification of the livestock, using conventional eartags with individual numbers indicating in particular the holdings of origin; or • strict identification of the livestock using electronic identification means; with individual numbering of the animals, or • more flexible conventional identification at individual level, but with a tighter approach to the keeping and centralising of reliable registers of holdings, so that the current situation and past and present livestock movements can be ascertained at any moment. ' eartagging(not involving electronic devices) or tattooing 16 The first option is not really practicable, given present methods of marking animals. The second option would depend on progress made in the field of electronic identification. Commission, with the technical support of the Joint Research Centre, [is launching] a large scale field trial, called IDEA, to examine the feasibility of using electronic identification for bovine and ovine/caprine animals. Fourteen(14) project proposals from seven(7) Member States were presented to the Commission. These projects were examined within 1996 and following a selection procedure 10 out of the 14 were pre-selected. The trial period, which will last three years, will involve the use of transponders which may be either inserted into the animal or contained in an eartag. It is intended that the selected projects will start in 1998 and end by 31st December 2000. This project will make it possible to validate the following in real life situations: the implantation technique, the choice and reading of the transponders throughout the animals' lives(with the respective equipment), the technique for recovering the transponders, the organisational structure, and the information flows between the different levels of responsibility. Porcine animals do not form part of the objectives of the IDEA project because it was premium oriented. Some experiments are presently envisaged regarding the use of electronic identification means for porcine animals. Commission following Article 4 point 7 of the Council Regulation No 820/979 and Article 10 of Council Directive 92/102/EEC(see page 2 of this report) shall review the issue of electronic identification. In case that IDEA will produce positive results in conformity with Council Regulation No 820/97, Council Directive 92/102/EEC and "Not later than 31 December 2000 the Council, acting on the basis of a report from the Commission accompanied by any proposals, shall decide, on the possibility of introducing electronic arrangements in the light of progress achieved in this field". 17 Council Regulation No 3508/92, Commission will submit proposals to the Council to amend the provisions concerning eartags and to generalise the use of transponders for all Community livestock. Until the electronic identification becomes operational the third option should be taken into consideration as a minimal solution. Reinforcing the current provisions regarding identification and registration of ovine/caprine and porcine animals would improve disease traceability and maintain consumers' confidence to meat coming from these animal species. 2. Guidance scheme Commission will propose to adopt electronic identification as soon as the system becomes fully operational. Meanwhile, Commission recommends a minimum system which has a certain value in terms of veterinary traceability as well as consumers' confidence. In the light of the experience gained, this minimum system should be based on a list of holdings that is easy to consult, on detailed and up-to-date registers of holdings, and on a method of marking animals that although limited to the most essential cases is nevertheless reliable. The common identification scheme for sheep and goats and the identification scheme for pigs should be based on the following: • The list of holdings would rapidly become comprehensive. It would feature a procedure - annual at least - for checking reliability and updating. It would have to allow rapid access to the identification number, the address, the type of production and the size of every holding on the list. The information would have to be collated and classified in such a way as to facilitate centralisation and aggregation. In the medium term, national systems would be centralised electronically into a compatible European network which would at all times have to reflect recorded livestock numbers. 18 • The holding register should record all livestock entering or leaving the holding, including births, deaths, loans, temporary movements, etc. It would have to be listed daily or perhaps in some cases - in particular small holdings - weekly. If they do not relate to individual animals, such data should at least cover highly specific categories. The minimum amount of information and the categories of animals would have to be determined at European level. • The animal movement documents would have to conform to a European model which allowed trade to be monitored easily and featured (a) a stub to be attached to the register for the holding and (b) a copy - retained by the consignee - accompanying the consignment concerned. The control and sanction procedures, which would be defined at national level, would have to be notified on request and be scrutinised at European level. • The marking of the animals would have to satisfy the following minimum requirements: At six months of age all sheep, goats and pigs animals would have to have an eartag indicating the number of the holding of origin; Eartagging would be compulsory for the movement of sheep, goats and pigs of age between two and six months. Where suitable, easily legible tattoos could replace eartags in the case of animals being sent from a holding to a slaughterhouse; For the movement of animals aged less than two months compulsory marking could be performed by means of some 'painting'. In order to be operational the identification system must at all costs feature mutually compatible national procedures and must therefore be harmonised at European level. The identification system for sheep and goats, and that for pigs, should therefore be introduced by way of a Council Regulation containing provisions that would be mandatory in every Member State. In order to take account of specific situations and 19 differences in terms of the progress achieved, the future Council Regulation should allow certain exceptions in justified cases, and permit Member States to adopt additional provisions at national level if they so wish, provided this does not entail any barrier to trade. 20 ANNEX I LIVESTOCK POPULATION TO BE INCLUDED IN THE IDENTIFICATION AND REGISTRATION SYSTEM (Thousands of heads in 1995) BOVINE OVINE/CAPRINE PORCINE Presence in December(1) Annual slaughter Presence in December(1) Annual slaughter Presence(1) in December Annual slaughter BE DK DE EL ESP FR IRL IT LUX NL OS PT SF SV UK 3147 2094 15890 550 5432 20662 6531 7128 204 4558 2323 1317 1179 1762 11673 1047 758 4751 315 1990 6011 1515 4732 23 ' 2379 663 396 393 531 3292 127 79 2429 14788 25982 11388 5772 12129 6 1353 392 4235 85 488 29574 226 69 2069 12531 21976 8706 4264 8443 643 280 1288 75 189 19234 7215 10709 23737 936 17583 14524 1542 7964 68 " 13958 3703 2400 1395 2331 7203 11294 19873 39361 2268 27539 24859 3003. 11992 112 18616 4954 4209 2066 3743 14388 TOTAL 84450 28796 108827 79993 115268 188277 (1) December 1994 11 ANNEX II DIRECTIVE 92/102/EEC - TRANSPOSITION STATUS MEMBER STATE BOVINE PORCINE OVINE/CAPRINE Deadline for transposition 01. 10. 93 BELGIUM DENMARK GERMANY ELLAS SPAIN FRANCE IRELAND. ITALY LUXEMBOURG THE NETHERLANDS PORTUGAL UNITED KINGDOM AUSTRIA FINLAND SWEDEN 1993 1994 1995 1995 1994 1995 1996 1996 1995 1993 1994 1995 1995 1995 1995 01. 01. 94 1990 (National legislation introduced for the identification of pigs) 1994 1994 1995 1996 - 1995 1996 1996 1995 1994/1996 1994 1995 1995 NOT YET 1995 01. 01. 95 1996 1994 1995 1995 1996 NOT YET 1996 1996 1995 1996 1994 1996 1995 NOT YET 1995 22 ISSN 0254-1475 COM(98) 207 final DOCUMENTS EN 03 15 16 Catalogue number : CB-C0-98-221-EN-C ISBN 92-78-32986-X Office for Official Publications of the European Communities L-2985 Luxembourg 13