The European Commission has finally published two key documents that will shape EU food policy for the next decade. After months of anticipation, the Livestock Strategy and the Protein Plan are out. In short, the Livestock Strategy protects the very industry it should reform, while the Protein Plan cuts its own ambitions on plant-based food before it even starts. On paper, the Commission calls the two complementary. After all, they came out the same day, on the same food system. Yet they do not talk to each other.
Some steps forward
First, there are steps forward. The Livestock Strategy follows up on the End the Cage Age European Citizens’ Initiative. It mentions a revision of rules for laying hens, broilers and pigs, ending the culling of day-old male chicks, and developing animal-based welfare indicators. It also promises equal welfare standards for imported products, though how that would work in trade policy is still unclear. Finally, it recognises that welfare and health go together. Animals under chronic stress fall ill more often, and sick animals are culled in their thousands or millions. This year’s HPAI and sheeppox outbreaks showed that at scale.
However, after years of delayed proposals and broken promises, the strategy will be judged by the action that follows. The European Commission must keep the timelines it set out and deliver concrete legislative proposals. That means delivering in full on its response to the End the Cage Age European Citizens’ Initiative, with clear proposals and timelines to phase out cages for all the species covered by the Initiative. It must also clarify the future of the wider animal welfare revision. Many important measures that were originally part of the package are absent from the strategy. Have they been delayed or dropped altogether?
The Commission owes citizens and stakeholders a clear roadmap for the full reform of the EU’s outdated animal welfare legislation, not just the parts that have made it into this strategy.
Then the strategy loses its nerve
The strategy then leans on precision feeding, genomic selection and AI-powered manure management. It offers these efficiency gains as a substitute for real change. But they do not touch what drives the sector’s footprint, which comes from how many animals are farmed, in how little space, for how much output. Stocking densities are the main driver of both disease and antimicrobial use, yet the strategy barely mentions them. Worse, it rebrands animal farming as a friend of biodiversity and soil health. That claim does not fit the facts: the sector is the EU’s top source of ammonia emissions and a major driver of nutrient pollution. Rebranding the problem does not solve it.
The Strategy’s reference to “cutting-edge genomic and animal breeding techniques” also raises concerns that the Commission may in future seek to extend the NGT policy approach beyond plants. Any such initiative would require an entirely separate policy and legislative discussion, as genetic modification of animals presents fundamentally different ethical, animal welfare and societal issues beyond plant breeding. This issue deserves close attention as the Commission develops its future agenda.
The Protein Plan, downgraded
By contrast, the Protein Plan tells a different story, and its drop from “Strategy” to “Plan” is telling. A strategy means duties: coherence, monitoring, real laws to follow. A plan is just a toolbox nobody has to open. Fittingly, it holds just one binding number: raising home-grown feed protein from 25% to 35% by 2035. Yet that target covers what goes into animal feed. It says nothing about what ends up on European plates.
Candid, but toothless, on diets
On diets, the Plan is candid. Animal protein makes up 64% of what Europeans eat, that share has risen since 2010, and plant protein intake has fallen 4% over the same period. Still, the Plan sets no target to reverse this, and it ignores the hidden costs: a shift to more plant-based diets could cut an estimated €1.3 trillion a year. As a result, everything with real teeth stays optional. CAP funding, procurement reform, labelling, promotion and taxation are all pushed to future laws or handed to Member States, who have shown little interest so far. Meanwhile, the animal farming sector gets direct backing.
Two documents, no conversation
The Commission called the two documents “complementary.” In practice, they are not. The Livestock Strategy barely mentions diversification or plant proteins, while the Protein Plan puts the sector’s feed security first and does not ask it to change. Two flagship documents came out the same day, on the same transition, and they do not talk to each other.
What credible reform would look like
Credible reform would set binding targets on both ends, not vague ones: lower stocking densities and real welfare gains on the farming side, real targets to shift diets on the protein side. Above all, CAP funding, procurement rules and labelling should reward the shift, not just allow it. Instead, the Commission defends and rebrands the animal farming sector, and points the protein shift the right way without committing too much. The direction is there. The follow-through is not. That work still lies ahead, in the CAP talks, the Public Procurement revision and the Biotech Act, where the real power sits. The words are all there.
But the commitments to make them real, mostly, are not.
