Brussels proposes ban on seal cruelty
LEIGH PHILLIPS
23.07.2008 @ 18:43 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Commission on Wednesday (23 July) proposed a ban on seal products obtained by inhumane methods from entering or being produced within the European Union.
"Seal products coming from countries that practice cruel hunting methods must not be allowed to enter the EU," said environment commissioner Stavros Dimas unveiling the proposal, which also covers sealing within the EU. "The EU is committed to upholding high standards of animal welfare."
Canada has warned it may take retaliatory trade measures against the EU (Photo: Wikipedia.org)
The regulation aims to ensure that the killing and skinning of seals during a hunt does not cause "pain, distress or suffering."
Trade in seal products would in future be allowed only where a certification scheme, coupled possibly with a product label, could guarantee the product as coming from a country meeting strict animal welfare conditions.
Each sealing country must submit their certification scheme or labelling mechanism to the commission for an exception to the ban
A study by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has said that seals can be killed rapidly without causing avoidable pain, "but evidence shows that effective killing does not always happen in practice," the commission said.
The proposal also suggests exceptions to the ban for indigenous hunting such as by Canada's Inuit people.
Dangerous loophole?
The International Fund for Animal Welfare, the leading NGO campaigning for a ban, welcomed the commission's move, but warned that the exception permitted for indigenous hunting was a dangerous loophole.
"Only a complete ban can prevent products from these large-scale and inherently cruel hunts from entering the European markets," said Robbie Marsland, the director of the UK-based group. "Harsh and unpredictable hunting conditions make it impossible to properly monitor or enforce so-called humane killing methods."
Meanwhile Canada, the largest producer of seal products in the world, warned that seals are not endangered and that the domestic legal requirements for sealing are stricter than those covering European slaughterhouses.
The Canadian government said that as its seals were humanely killed, it expected to receive an exemption from the proposed ban.
Nonetheless, fisheries minister Loyola Hearn, said: "We would like to caution European decision-makers: adopting broad regulations to ban products from a responsible, sustainable and well-regulated hunt is a slippery slope. To bow to misinformation and emotional rhetoric in restricting the trade of humanely harvested animals would set a dangerous precedent for all wild hunts."
"Canada expects the EU to quickly begin discussions on the conditions for exemption from the draft regulations so that any trade restriction would have no impact on market access for products."
Greenland - the Danish territory where sealing has been practiced by native inhabitants for thousands of years - Sweden and Finland will also be hit by the measure.
The Danish Foreign Ministry said the country will now be working on the details of any certification scheme or labelling mechanism.
"Bans are not good," said Anja Jeffrey of the foreign ministry, "But there are derogations [exceptions] for native sealing, so we will have to work with what we've got."
European hunting groups, for their part, are worried they will be next.
"We remain concerned about the extension of EU competence into all areas of animal welfare on the basis of emotions rather than objective and measurable criteria," said Angus Middleton, the director of conservation for the Federation of Associations for Hunting and Conservation of the EU (FACE).
Pressed by reporters to define what the commission considered humane conditions, Mr Dimas said: "It's very difficult to define what is humane. Perhaps in our minds, killing and humane are incompatible."
Prohibition on cruelty to all animals under investigation
"I don't like killing of any kind," the non-vegetarian commissioner added. "The proposal just deals with seals, but it sends a much wider signal that we should prohibit any cruel behaviour regarding animals."
There are currently no EU-wide certification schemes for ensuring other animals - from battery chickens to veal calves - from being raised and slaughtered in conditions that could be considered inhumane.
"This ban is the first of its kind," said commission environment spokesperson Barbara Helfferich. "We're dealing with wild animals and the hunting of them. Let's get first things first."
The commission is conducting a new feasibility study on animal welfare labelling however, exploring the possibility of a standardisation of indicators of animal health across the EU, from the raising of the animals through to their transport and slaughter.
The study is expected to be ready by the end of the year and will then be submitted to the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament. Depending on the result of the study, the commission will look at proposing measures to prevent cruelty to animals.