The initiatives usually come from animal rights organizations but in recent years more and more, from nationalist organizations seeking to harm Muslim immigrants by making halal slaughter illegal. In the past, bills have been raised in a number of European countries to ban such slaughter, including in Germany.

Jewish communities in Europe fear that if the Court of Justice approves the legality of Belgian legislation, then this will lead to other countries also banning kosher slaughter. The hearing in the Court of Justice has been delayed due to the coronavirus and will take place this week for the first time. The Belgian Constitutional Court referred the case to the European Court of Justice and sought to examine whether Belgian legislation is in line with EU legislation. The Jewish community in Belgium has petitioned the Belgian Constitutional Court, arguing that legislation in Wallonia and Flanders is contrary to European regulation but also to other European conventions on human rights and freedom of religion вЂ“ in that it cancels the legitimacy that the regulation that permits religious slaughter. However, the EU left an exception that member states are allowed to impose additional restrictions beyond those set out in European regulation to ensure better protection for animals.ДЇollowing the regulation, a number of European countries indeed added more restrictions, and they banned slaughter without stunning вЂ“ including Denmark, Slovenia, Sweden and most recently the two Belgian provinces. The regulation stipulates that animals must be first stunned before slaughtering them, with one exception: slaughter for religious reasons such as kosher (Jewish) or halal (Muslim вЂњkosherвЂќ) in which stunning is forbidden. In 2009 the European Union (EU) set its current regulation for the humane, painless slaughter of animals. There are grave concerns in European Jewish communities: If the Court of Justice rules that the ban is legal, the decision will have implications for a number of other European countries that will also ban kosher slaughter. The tribunal will discuss the legality of the ban imposed by two provinces in Belgium (Wallonia and Flanders) on kosher slaughter. The Court of Justice of the European Union in Brussels has begun to discuss for the first time the legality of kosher meat slaughtering in Europe.

Muslim kosher