Five minutes with Marianne Thieme: “We need to refocus our priorities instead of putting mankind at the centre of the universe”

In 2006, the Party for the Animals (Partij voor de Dieren) became the first animal rights party to gain representation in a national parliament when it gained two seats in the House of Representatives of the Netherlands. EUROPP’s editors spoke to the party’s parliamentary leader, Marianne Thieme, about the party’s success, the lessons to be learned from Europe’s horsemeat scandal, and whether in a time of economic crisis Europeans can afford to prioritise animal rights.