Stop the EU from Funding Mega Slaughterhouses Destroying Croatia

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Sponsor: The Animal Rescue Site

Europe is being asked to bankroll projects that trade clean water animal lives and human health for profit and silence and only public pressure can stop the damage before it becomes permanent.

Stop the EU from Funding Mega Slaughterhouses Destroying Croatia

Across central Croatia, plans are moving forward for a tightly linked network of mega poultry farms, hatcheries, feed factories, and slaughterhouses designed to process hundreds of millions of chickens each year.1 This scale of industrial farming would fundamentally alter the land, water, and air of entire communities, with consequences that cannot be undone. 

These projects concentrate production into a single region, creating an environmental load far beyond what local ecosystems were built to handle. Waste, emissions, and wastewater would accumulate faster than nature can recover, while nearby villages, schools, and drinking-water sources sit directly in the impact zone.4

Animals Reduced to Outputs

At the heart of these plans is a model that treats animals as units in a production line. Millions of chickens would be raised in dense confinement, then slaughtered at industrial speed. Industry analysis shows these facilities are designed for maximum output, not humane care.2

This approach clashes with widely held European expectations around animal welfare. Once such systems are built, suffering becomes embedded into daily operations, hidden behind efficiency metrics and supply chains.

Water, Pollution, and Public Health at Risk

The environmental footprint extends well beyond animal welfare. Individual facilities would consume enormous volumes of freshwater each year while releasing wastewater, ammonia, and other pollutants into surrounding soil and waterways.4 Wildlife habitats and protected natural areas stand directly in harm’s path.

Residents face long-term risks to health and quality of life. These are not abstract concerns. They are the predictable outcomes of concentrating industrial waste and emissions in one place.

Approvals That Ignore the Full Picture

Investigations into Croatia’s environmental oversight reveal a troubling pattern. Large projects often receive approval through fragmented environmental assessments that fail to account for cumulative impacts.3 Interconnected developments move forward as if they exist independently, even when their combined effect overwhelms the region.

This regulatory weakness allows destructive projects to advance while appearing compliant on paper. The real costs surface only after construction begins.

Why Europe Must Act Now

Because these operations sit inside the European Union, they gain access to the single market while bypassing safeguards meant to limit harm.2 Financial and institutional support from European bodies gives these projects momentum and legitimacy.

Europe has a choice. It can continue to enable industrial systems that sacrifice animals, communities, and ecosystems, or it can draw a clear line in defense of health, welfare, and environmental protection.

Take Action

The European Commission and the European Investment Bank have the power to stop funding and supporting operations that place people and animals at risk. Add your name to demand divestment, accountability, and a future that values life over unchecked industrial expansion.

Sign the petition now.

The Petition

To the European Commission and the European Investment Bank

We write to urge immediate divestment from and opposition to industrial agricultural operations in Croatia that are driving severe environmental degradation, placing communities at risk, and subjecting animals to large-scale suffering.

Across central Croatia, plans for interconnected mega poultry farms and slaughterhouses threaten to overwhelm land, water, and air systems. These projects concentrate millions of animals in confined conditions, generate extraordinary volumes of waste, and consume vast amounts of freshwater. Their footprint extends beyond property lines into nearby villages, schools, protected natural areas, and drinking-water sources. Once established, the damage becomes permanent.

These developments do not exist in isolation. They rely on regulatory gaps, fragmented approvals, and financial backing that enables scale without accountability. When projects advance as separate components, their cumulative impacts are minimized on paper while magnified in reality. The result is a pattern of environmental harm that contradicts the European Union’s stated commitments to biodiversity protection, public health, climate responsibility, and high animal-welfare standards.

Public financing and institutional support must not enable outcomes that undermine these principles. We therefore call on the European Commission to conduct a full EU-level review of these operations for compliance with environmental law, competition rules, and Natura 2000 protections. We also call on the European Investment Bank to withdraw current and future financing from any industrial agriculture projects in Croatia that contribute to environmental destruction, threaten public health, or depend on intensive confinement systems incompatible with humane treatment.

This is not only a legal or economic issue. It is a moral one. Animals raised at industrial scale are reduced to production units, denied basic welfare, and exposed to chronic stress and harm. Communities living nearby bear the costs through pollution, health risks, and loss of quality of life. A food system that requires this level of suffering and sacrifice cannot be called progress.

Compassion and humanity must guide decision-making at every level. Europe has the capacity to support agriculture that respects animals, safeguards ecosystems, and sustains rural communities without exhausting them. Redirecting investment toward ethical, environmentally responsible models is both possible and necessary.

By divesting from destructive operations and enforcing meaningful safeguards, the European Commission and the European Investment Bank can protect people, defend animals, and preserve Croatia’s natural heritage. These actions will strengthen trust in European institutions and help ensure a healthier, more just, and more sustainable future for all.

Sincerely,

DEV MODE ACTIVE. BRAND: gg