Founded 13 February 1993 Political position Centre-left | Membership about 1,000 (2004) | |
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Chairperson Stefan Bernhard Eck, Barbara Nauheimer, Horst Wester Headquarters Richard-Schirrmann-Str. 14
55122 Mainz Ideology Animal rights
Environmentalism | ||
Human Environment Animal Welfare (German: Mensch Umwelt Tierschutz, short form: The Animal Protection Party, German: Die Tierschutzpartei) is a political party in Germany. It was founded in 1993, and in 2004 it had about 1,000 members. In 2014 one candidate was elected to the European Parliament. He left the party in December 2014. Today the party has no members in the state parliaments, the European Parliament or the Bundestag.
Overview
The party aspires to turn away from the anthropocentric view of life. Its main goal is the introduction of more animal rights into the German constitution. Those include the right to live and the protection from physical and psychological damages. The Tierschutzpartei also demands prohibition of animal testing, bullfighting, hunting, the production of furs, circus animals and agricultural animal husbandry, as well as the adaptation of the people to veganism.
Their ideas on environmental policy are relatively similar to those of Alliance '90/The Greens. The party supports a ban on genetic engineering and wants a reduction of car traffic and an immediate exit from nuclear energy.
In the 2014 European parliament elections, the Animal Protection Party received 1.25% of the national vote (366,303 votes in total) and returned one MEP, Stefan Eck, who sits with the EUL-NGL. In 2014 Eck left the party and became an independent MEP in the EUL-NGL-group.