Making queues at motorway toll booths a thing of the past; finding your way around a large building; precision farming; monitoring animal transport; landing an aircraft with an accuracy of within 2 metres of the centre line of the runway; guiding blind people and explaining their itinerary in real time; driving at an appropriate speed in terms of obstacles on the road or the route it follows – all this will soon be possible thanks to Galileo, the civil satellite navigation programme developed by the European Commission and the European Space Agency.

It is appropriate that journeys for animals are similarly regulated.

The Dutch delegation indicated that several other cases of infected poultry farms recently appeared in the south of the Netherlands, close to the Belgian and German borders and listed a set of measures adopted in order to limit the contamination, such as the creation of buffer zones around the areas concerned where all poultry farms had been emptied, the massive culling of poultry in the farms and areas concerned, the control on the ...[+++]transport of animals, including cattle.

returning the animals to their place of departure by the most direct route, or allow the animals to continue to their place of destination by the most direct route, whichever is in the best interest of the welfare of the animals.

all necessary arrangements have been made in advance to minimise the length of the journey and meet animals' needs during the journey.

It is proposed to introduce specific rules on resting periods, feeding and watering intervals, stocking densities and vehicle standards for the transport of animals.