Apr 20, 2026 Beyond Left and Right: The Politics of Animal Welfare

The European Union has gradually evolved since the end of World War II. In 1951, the Treaty of Paris established the European Coal and Steel Community across six European countries: Belgium, West Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg, and The Netherlands. This treaty laid the foundation for what would eventually become the European Union. In 1957, the Treaty of Rome expanded the scope of cooperation among European nations and established the European Economic Community.

In 1979, the first European-wide elections took place, allowing citizens to elect representatives to the European Parliament. Around this time, Mike Seymour-Rouse from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) in the UK proposed that the organization support the creation of a group in Brussels to lobby the European Parliament and the European Commission on animal welfare. The RSPCA Council agreed with this suggestion, and Seymour-Rouse persuaded animal organizations from five other member countries to partner with the RSPCA and establish Eurogroup for Animals in Brussels in 1980. Eurogroup for Animals was one of the first political lobbies formed in Brussels and has since expanded from its original six members to over one hundred organizations today.

In 1982, Eurogroup helped create and provide staff support for the Intergroup for Animals, a coalition of Members of the European Parliament who met monthly to discuss animal welfare issues. Seymour-Rouse, along with David Wilkins, the RSPCA Chief Veterinarian, regularly traveled to Brussels to attend these Intergroup meetings. Andrew Pearce, a British Member of the European Parliament, remarked that Seymour-Rouse, who was fluent in several European languages, was an extraordinary character and “as effective as a lobbyist for the causes he supported as any ten British business lobbyists put together.” (Quoted in Weisskircher’s 2019 PhD thesis, page 87) In part due to Eurogroup activities, the European Commission supported early initiatives in the 1980s to investigate the welfare of farmed animals, with the first major international conference on the topic taking place in Amsterdam in 1979.

Today, representatives from animal rights political parties in the European Parliament are referred to informally as the Euro Animal 7. This name comes from the seven countries—Cyprus, Germany, The Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom—where animal parties participated in the 2014 European Parliament election.

While the rise of political parties focused on animal welfare is mostly a European phenomenon, there are Animal Justice Parties in Australia and New Zealand, as well as an Animal Rights Party in Canada. The role and influence of political parties specifically focused on animal welfare issues are examined in an extensive two-part analysis in the Effective Altruism Forum (Part 1 & Part 2).

While there appears to be an expectation that animal issues would be promoted by left-leaning individuals and organizations, animal welfare is one of the few issues that crosses traditional political divisions. While animal organizations tend to be staffed by individuals on the left, they receive substantial funding and other support from individuals on the right of the political spectrum. A 2022 public opinion poll by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) found substantial public support from both Republicans and Democrats for animal protection policies and legislation, while many actions supporting animal welfare by the U.S. Congress are sponsored or supported by both Republicans and Democrats.

In a recent article in The Atlantic, senior editor Daniel Engber interviews a Swedish political scientist, Jakob Schwörer, who has analyzed recent European party manifestos and reports that the manifesto of a far-right party in Austria made positive reference to animal welfare in 7% of its sentences and comments that this was a remarkably high proportion. Countries with a proportional representation voting system are good targets for people who would like to start an animal political party, because only 1-2% of the vote is needed to elect a candidate. Pro-animal candidates in Germany and The Netherlands were elected to the European Parliament, and in 2019, The Netherlands’ animal party (PvdD) had five seats in the House of Representatives, two in the Senate, 20 provincial seats and one member in the European Parliament.

There are as yet no “animal” political parties in the USA. However, the current US administration has initiated several strongly pro-animal welfare initiatives. Regarding animal research, four senior administration members (Bhattacharya – NIH, Zeldin – EPA, Makary – FDA, and Kennedy – HHS) have announced plans to reduce or eliminate the use of mammals in biomedical research and testing. This is not as surprising as might first appear. The current governments in the UK, The Netherlands and Australia are also supporting initiatives aiming to reduce or eliminate the use of laboratory mammals, and the European Union has announced it plans to publish a roadmap with similar aims.

Taken together, the above examples illustrate that animal advocacy and animal welfare policy do not align neatly with conventional political divisions. While organized animal political parties have gained some traction in European proportional representation systems, meaningful legislative advances have also emerged through mainstream parties, cross‑party coalitions, and administrative actions in multiple countries. Animal welfare has proven to be an unusual policy domain—capable of attracting support from across the political spectrum, whether for ethical, cultural, scientific, or strategic reasons—suggesting that its policy future will depend less on ideology than on individual attitudes and specific institutional opportunities.