According to a report on the Czech radio station Radio Praha, the home breeding and slaughtering of pigs several times a year has been an economic necessity on the European continent for hundreds of years.

A pig slaughtering feast has been a tradition in many European countries, including the Czech Republic, Croatia, Serbia, Hungary, Italy, Greece, Portugal and Spain.

The idea it could be banned caused an outcry among traditionalists an the Czech Agriculture Ministry has lobbied hard to allow it to carry on.

The tradition caused concerns among animal welfarists.

However, a spokesman of the Czech ministry told the radio station: "The Czech Republic was striving for a solution which would ensure the highest level of protection of animals possible while respecting the reality of everyday life. The key thing was to explain to the member states how it works when people breed and slaughter animals at home, secondly to explain what needs to be done on broad-scale to improve the level of animal welfare so that the union has modern-day legislation suitable for the 21st century."

Now the EU has allowed the tradition to continue following changes in the regulations to get a consensus over welfare concerns.

And the Czech ministry said it expects the home slaughter tradition and manufacture of traditional products to take place in the autumn.