Sonja Van Tichelen, a 20-year representative of Eurogroup for Animals, based in Brussels, on June 6, 2012 announced that she has “accepted the post of European Union director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, starting on September 1.”

Joining Eurogroup as a campaign coordinator in 1992, Van Tichelen was promoted to deputy director in 1997. She became director in 2004. Wrote Van Tichelen in the April 2012 edition of the Eurogroup newsletter, “The EU published last February its new strategy to promote animal welfare. After a full year of evaluating the outcome of the EU animal welfare policy, the Commission has disappointed the animal welfare movement with an ‘ultra-light’ strategy, welcomed enthusiastically by the Farmers Union but far removed from what EU citizens expect. It is disappointing,” Van Tichelen wrote, “that the focus of the strategy is on farm animal welfare, with the protection of wild animals and the high-profile issue of animal testing completely out of the picture. Although the [European] Parliament and the member states have asked for EU initiatives on cats and dogs, we will have to wait until 2014 for a study of the welfare of dogs and cats involved in commercial practices. In essence,” Van Tichelen finished, “this means that no new legislation is foreseen to improve animal welfare. This despite the fact that several categories of animals–cattle, fish, dogs and cats, sheep and goats–are left with no legal protection.” Read more