Animal Protection in Europe

The fact that animal welfare can be successful, throughout Europe, while crossing borders, is no longer a distant dream. Our Association, for the promotion of animal welfare in Europe was founded in 1995. The aim now, as it was then, is to connect German and European animal protection, as well as encouraging partnerships through cooperation between European animal protection associations. In the first few years this was achieved, by creating links between, for example, Spanish animal protection organisations and German animal shelters.

For many years, our Association operated its own animal homing and adoption service, as well as the supply and transport of animals between European and German partner animal shelters. At that time, we were the only animal welfare organisation working in Spain, together with two other small organisations. We were accomplishing a lot of goals between us, saving and rehoming a lot of defenceless animals. We always combined this with the necessary education of the local communities and supported the local shelters and activists. Today, because countless organisations and lone fighters are importing and exporting animals, from Spain or Romania to Germany, Belgium or Great Britain, we have withdrawn from our regular support and importing of dogs and cats.

During our first ten years or so, it became clear that local sustainable help was often difficult or even failed, due to the lack of mentalisation of the people and especially of local politics. After realising that measurable progress could only be achieved, where local people worked actively and correctly with the considerations needed to provide a good animal welfare, we successfully concentrated on specific and well run organisations. Today, we are committed to supporting only those local animal welfare activists who are born in the country they work in, understand the local issues and politics and work hard to integrate their local community into the concept of respect for animal life.

The cat protection association Aldea Felina on the Spanish Costa Blanca has become our focus point for our support. The founders are all Spanish and the president is a young Spanish veterinarian. We are proud to have been a part of the journey, from the beginning by their side, watching Aldea Felina grow positively and intensively. In addition, we also try to influence the welfare of animals in agriculture, wild animals, animals in sports or animal experiments. For this purpose, we are a member of the German Animal Welfare Association (Deutscher Tierschutzbund) and our Chairman is a member on the board of the Eurogroup for Animals in Brussels.