Animal Welfare Code: MR refuses debate and once again sacrifices animal welfare

Brussels, 7 October 2026 – MR has once again chosen obstruction. This Wednesday, in the Environment Committee of the Brussels Parliament, the liberal party opposed placing the Brussels Animal Welfare Code on the agenda, once again preventing the parliamentary debate from getting under way.

This obstruction is all the harder to accept because MR itself chairs the committee in which the Code has been held up for months. And while Les Engagés, also part of the Brussels majority, strongly supported putting the Code on the agenda this time, MR refused to allow a vote on scheduling the text for debate.

For GAIA, the contradiction has now become glaring: for years, MR has claimed that it wants Brussels to adopt an Animal Welfare Code, and in 2024 it even tabled a proposal of its own.

“It’s time to stop saying one thing and doing another. MR chairs the committee, says it wants a Code, has tabled one itself, and yet for months it has been preventing the debate from taking place. Today, MR itself is the biggest obstacle between its commitments on animal welfare and actually delivering on them,” says Michel Vandenbosch, President of GAIA.

A deadlock that has gone on far too long

On 22 April, the committee had already refused to place the Code on the agenda. At the time, MR and Les Engagés, supported by PS and PTB, prevented the debate from being opened. Since then, however, the political landscape has shifted. Les Engagés now supports putting the Code on the agenda, as does Groen.

The Code and its inclusion on the agenda have also received consistent support from the opposition, notably from DéFI, through Jonathan de Patoul, and from N-VA, through Mathias Vanden Borre. Despite this repeated support, the debate remains blocked.

Meanwhile, citizens have also made their voices heard in Parliament. An official petition specifically calling for the Code to be placed on the agenda reached the required signature threshold. In response to this mobilisation, MR merely promised that the petitioner would be heard by the committee. But no date has yet been set for that hearing, let alone for the Code itself to be placed on the agenda afterwards.

Are alternative majorities only possible when convenient?

On the issue of home searches, the Brussels Parliament has just demonstrated that an alternative majority is indeed possible. PS and Groen, despite being members of the regional majority, voted together with several opposition parties, despite opposition from MR and Les Engagés.

“The precedent set by the home-searches vote removes any remaining excuses. When PS believes an issue warrants it, it helps form an alternative majority and Parliament votes. Today, MR could make exactly the same thing possible on an issue it claims to support itself. Instead, MR chooses to join forces with PS and PTB to block the debate. At some point, words and actions have to match.”

MR MPs must take responsibility

GAIA is also calling on the MR MPs who are contributing to this deadlock to take responsibility, particularly those who publicly present themselves elsewhere as advocates for animal protection.

This includes Gaëtan Van Goidsenhoven, an MR MP who is also President of Veeweyde, one of the country’s leading animal protection organisations.

“How can someone chair an animal protection organisation while, in Parliament, helping to prevent even a debate on a Code intended to improve animal protection? No one is asking Mr Van Goidsenhoven to approve everything. But refusing even to allow the Brussels Parliament to examine the texts is difficult to reconcile with a stated commitment to animal welfare.”

Even public pressure is not enough

In September, GAIA called on Brussels residents to support the official petition demanding that the Code be debated. The required signature threshold was reached. Yet despite this mobilisation, despite several proposed Codes having been tabled, despite Les Engagés changing its position, and despite support from several parties for opening the debate, the Code remains blocked.

Meanwhile, Brussels remains the only region in the country without a fully fledged Animal Welfare Code. Several long-awaited improvements therefore remain stalled by political calculations.