What the higher fines protect
Changes to the rules governing the meat market increased sanctions for certain infringements involving slaughterhouses, traceability, and commercial controls. Strong enforcement is welcome, but the legal purpose of these measures matters.
Much of the framework is designed around food safety, market order, consumer confidence, and export requirements. Animals appear within the system primarily as productive inputs rather than as beings whose own interests in avoiding suffering require independent protection.
The missing centre of the law
Animal-welfare rules cannot be measured only by the size of fines. They must also ask what conduct is prohibited, whose interests the sanctions are designed to protect, and whether oversight reaches the moments when animals are most vulnerable: transport, waiting, handling, stunning, and killing.
A legal system genuinely committed to animal protection must move beyond rules that protect the industry's orderly operation and make animals' welfare a central, enforceable concern.