The key facts
- The State Duma will consider six bills on domestic and homeless animals, all of them backed by the government
- One of the initiatives provides for mandatory pet registration
- Of the working group's 20 initiatives, 14 still require coordination with the government; no bill has been adopted yet
Six initiatives have been backed by the government
The State Duma plans to consider six bills concerning domestic and homeless animals. All the initiatives have already received government support, and one of them provides for mandatory registration of pets. Elena Panova, head of the Committee on Ecology, Natural Resources and Environmental Protection, told the Izvestia newspaper about this. According to her, the documents are now being prepared for consideration by the relevant committee: no specific timelines have been set, but the issue will definitely be included in the agenda of upcoming sessions.
The fate of the remaining initiatives and the deputies' position
The working group on protecting people from stray animals developed 20 legislative initiatives back in the previous State Duma convocation. Six of them were backed by the government, while the remaining 14 require further coordination with the cabinet. Nina Ostanina, former head of the working group and chair of the State Duma Committee on Family Protection, urged not to delay consideration of the approved documents and, in her view, the government's support guarantees the adoption of all six bills. She also suggested that a new working group on stray animal issues could be created if the relevant committee does not continue work on the prepared initiatives. None of the six bills has been adopted yet.
Context: pet insurance and registration
It was previously reported that mandatory health insurance for domestic animals may appear in Russia no earlier than in 10–15 years. State Duma deputy Alexei Kurinny noted that first it is necessary to resolve healthcare funding issues and establish pet registration, and, according to him, the regions' readiness for mandatory animal registration varies significantly. This echoes the initiatives under consideration: pet registration appears in the package of six bills, which points to a link between two areas of work — animal registration and their insurance.
Why this matters
The package of initiatives affects pet owners: if the law on mandatory pet registration is adopted, owners will have a new obligation, and the regions will face the task of organizing registration, for which, according to Alexei Kurinny, the regions' readiness still varies. For a practical outcome, it is important that the six bills have already been backed by the government; however, the timelines for their consideration have not been set and none of the documents has been adopted yet — meaning that specific changes for citizens will only become known after the bills pass through the State Duma.
