The European Parliament does not lightly rebuke a European commissioner. So, when MEPs formally concluded on 28 April that Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi (pictured) had demonstrated a “pattern incompatible with the standards of accountability, reliability, and sound administration required of a Member of the Commission” during his tenure as Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement, Brussels should have paid close attention, writes Matteo Cupi, European Vice President, Animal Equality.
What deserves far more scrutiny is that the same pattern now appears to be playing out in his role as Commissioner responsible for animal welfare.The same Commissioner now oversees one of the European Union’s most significant unfinished commitments: the long-delayed ban on cages in farming.
The Parliament’s criticism concerned Várhelyi’s previous role overseeing the EU’s enlargement portfolio, where MEPs criticised prolonged management failures and the provision of inaccurate information to Parliament. But the concerns raised – delays, poor oversight, and a failure to deliver on core responsibilities – are difficult to ignore in light of what has happened since he assumed responsibility for animal welfare.
In 2021, after more than 1.4 million Europeans signed the End the Cage Age European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI), the Commission committed itself to introducing legislation to phase out cages across the EU. It was presented as a milestone moment – proof that ordinary citizens could shape European policy, and proof that Europe intended to lead the world on animal welfare standards.
Nearly five years later, the promise remains broken.
The Commission’s original deadline of 2023 passed without a proposal, and the cage ban was later omitted entirely from the Commission’s 2026 Work Programme.
The delay alone would be damning enough. But the handling of this file raises deeper questions about whose voices are being heard inside the Commission – and whose are being ignored.
Over the past year, Animal Equality analysed 156 meetings linked to Commissioner Várhelyi using data from the EU Transparency Register and official Commission disclosures. Across those meetings, he discussed animal welfare 21 times with representatives from livestock, meat, egg and other intensive farming industry groups, but met animal welfare organisations only once. The word “cage” did not appear in the declared subject of a single meeting.
That is difficult to reconcile with the scale of support behind the reform. The cage ban is not a fringe campaign demand. It is one of the most widely supported animal welfare measures in EU history, backed by scientists, veterinarians, NGOs and millions of citizens across the bloc. The Commission itself acknowledged years ago that change was necessary.
Yet under Várhelyi, the response has become a familiar pattern of delay and deferral. During a recent hearing before the European Parliament’s ENVI Committee on 4 May, frustrated MEPs pressed the Commissioner directly on whether legislation would finally appear this year. Once again, he offered not action, but more process – not answers, but more waiting.
His recent declaration that Europe “can and should” move to cage-free farming was a politically meaningful signal – but it was nothing more than that. His announcement contained no legislative proposal. No timeline followed, no enforcement mechanism, and no dedicated EU-level financing. What the Commission offered instead, was rhetorical endorsement dressed up as direction, while quietly shifting implementation responsibility onto Member States – a model that risks fragmented standards and unequal progress across Europe. Recognition of the transition is not the same thing as a commitment to implement it: political direction without legislation, financing, and a timeline is not yet a transition plan.
And all the while, the realities inside Europe’s farming systems remain unchanged. Millions of hens continue to spend their lives in cages so small they cannot fully spread their wings, while pigs remain confined in crates barely larger than their own bodies.
The inaction has grown so egregious that the issue is now extending beyond politics and into the courts. The Court of Justice of the European Union has granted a hearing to the End the Cage Age Citizens’ Committee and animal protection organizations challenging the Commission’s failure to act. It is the first time the EU’s highest court has been asked to examine whether the Commission failed to properly respond to a European Citizens’ Initiative.
This is no longer just a question of animal welfare. It is becoming a question of whether democratic participation in Europe still means anything.
Citizens were encouraged to engage with the European project. They organised across borders, gathered signatures, and used the democratic mechanisms the EU itself created. They were told their voices mattered. Yet many years later, around 300 million animals remain confined in cages across Europe while the promised reform gathers dust.
There is also a broader political question hanging over Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi. For years, he was widely viewed in Brussels as Viktor Orbán’s loyal representative inside the European Commission – “Orbán’s man in Brussels”, as he has often been described.
Legally, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has the authority to request a Commissioner’s resignation, but there is little precedent for removing an individual Commissioner mid-mandate.
However, Europe is in a different political moment now. The conditions and patrons that once protected Várhelyi are changing, along with patience for Commissioners who fail to deliver on major public commitments
That inevitably raises difficult questions in Brussels. Why should one of the EU’s most politically sensitive portfolios remain in the hands of a Commissioner whose authority and judgement are increasingly under scrutiny? And how much longer can the Commission defend continued delay on a commitment it publicly made to millions of European citizens?
If the EU genuinely wants to restore trust in its institutions, it cannot continue treating accountability as optional.
Europe does not need another year of consultations, roadmaps, and procedural delays on cages. It needs legislation. And if Commissioner Várhelyi cannot – or will not – deliver the reform he was entrusted to oversee, the Commission should begin asking, urgently, whether someone else can.
