The European parliament will vote on Thursday on changing the wolf’s protected status after agreeing on Tuesday to speed up the process.

MEPs will then vote on whether the wolf’s status should be downgraded from “strictly protected” to “protected”, which would allow authorised culls.

However, domestic legislation in the Netherlands would also need to be amended before wolves could be legally shot, something junior farm minister Jean Rummenie has said he is already working on.

Caroline van der Plas, the leader of Rummenie’s party BBB, has called for the Netherlands to become a wolf-free zone.

The wolf was once nearly extinct in Europe, which led to its “strictly protected” status. But the species has now returned across much of the continent, with populations exceeding 1,000 in the larger countries.

The rise in numbers has led to growing conflict between wolves and humans, prompting the proposal to allow culling under strict conditions.

The European Commission proposed downgrading the wolf’s protection status in 2023, following an in-depth assessment that found the population had increased and posed a threat to farmers and livestock.

Commission president Ursula von der Leyen announced the move after her pony, Dolly, was killed by a wolf.

In September last year, following a shift in Germany’s position, EU governments backed the Commission’s proposal, leading to this week’s vote.