Freedom-loving cow leaves the EU

The outcry in the social media has proven effective: the Bulgarian cow Penka will not be slaughtered after leaving the EU in May on an unauthorised field trip to non-EU member Serbia. Bulgarian veterinary authorities had argued that the cow had to be killed, citing EU import regulations. But after receiving a clean bill of health Penka has been given a new lease on life. Europe's journalists can't get enough of the story.

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24 Chasa (BG) /

Penka can't read prohibition signs

24 Chasa is delighted that the animal will be allowed to live and condemns the Brussels bureaucracy:

“Who would even think of issuing a ban on animals? Is there such a thing as a sign in cow language that reads: 'Border crossers will be slaughtered at their own expense'? Are the Bulgarians who travel to Serbia every weekend to fill their bellies with Pljeskavica seen as potential bacterial threats? ... One of these days bureaucracy and mental blinkers will be our downfall, you'll see. If the media hadn't reacted, Penka would have paid with her life - for nothing at all.”

Svenska Dagbladet (SE) /

Mad cow disease forgotten - the EU's to blame!

Svenska Dagbladet finds the media coverage in Britain, where The Daily Telegraph launched a petition to save the cow, particulary annoying:

“For years British journalists have been trumpeting half-lies and whole lies about the EU. ... It's become standard practice for journalists to copy such texts without even asking themselves whether there could be anything more behind the Penka affair than brainless EU regulations passed by idiot bureaucrats just to annoy normal people - and above all sensible Brits. ... Which country did mad cow disease come from again? A fatal disease that claimed hundreds of lives? Britain. There is every reason to thank the Bulgarian authorities for their exemplary measures taken to control diseases.”