Is a recent legal order banning Romanian peasants from selling their pigs as of 2023, thus ruining Christmas? No, that's not true: The act regulates biosecurity conditions for pig breeding farms in Romania. While its initial form aimed to limit the selling of pigs only to commercially registered holdings, it was quickly modified to state that non-commercial households are allowed to sell their pigs under certain stricter regulations.
The claim originated from this video (archived here) published by TikTok user @andreea.cretulescu on November 5, 2023, which was later reposted by other accounts with no update. It began (translated from Romanian to English by Lead Stories staff):
The legal norm that ruins the Romanian Christmas. The order applies from 2023.
Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail:
Norma legala care distruge Craciunul in stil romanesc. Ordinul 132/418/2023. #romania???????? #foryou #craciun #lege
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Tue Nov 21 11:53:20 2023 UTC)
The speaker refers to Order no. 132/418/2023 issued by the National Sanitary Veterinary and Food Safety Authority (ANSVA) in October 2023. Its appendix stated that, according to the application rules of Law 122/2023 on pig farms and combating swine fever in Romania, the so-called Pig Law, the "non-commercial holding of pigs" could raise pigs in their own household for fattening and slaughtering for family consumption, but could no longer sell them (categories such as "professional commercial holding of pigs" and "family-type commercial holding" were still legally allowed to sell pigs).
Later, ANSVSA stated in a press release that neither raising nor slaughtering pigs in the peasant household nor their commercialization would be prohibited.
The minister of agriculture, Florin Barbu, also announced that a new legal adjustment would allow "natural persons" to still be able to sell their pigs during the Christmas holidays as long as they followed certain biosecurity rules to prevent the spread of the African swine fever virus. Asked what will happen after this period, he said that "the order remains in force in the following period as well."
According to this change (issued on November 15, 2023), a free-practice veterinarian doctor authorized by the county Sanitary Veterinary Department will have to analyze the pigs in the non-commercial household and complete a clinical examination sheet to certify the animal's health status (which must be identified and registered in the National Animal Identification and Registration System).
