The European Parliament easily secured enough signatures to pressure the European Commission to address the cat and dog fur trade, but the legislative body of the Europe Union is resisting the call, claiming not to have the authority to pass a comprehensive ban on the cruel trade in Europe.
The members of the European Parliament (MEPs) needed to gather 314 signatures by December 22 for their Written Declaration to become the parliament's official position. They collected 346 signatures by Wednesday, December 17—the third highest total of signatures ever collected for a Written Declaration during the five-year period of the currently sitting European Parliament (and only the fifth declaration to collect enough signatures during the same period).
The declaration, sponsored by British MEP Struan Stevenson and co-sponsored by four other MEPs, officially gives European Parliament President Pat Cox the mandate to ask the European Commission to draft laws to deal with the dog and cat fur trade. But, according to Scotland's Sunday Herald, commission officials are maintaining their stance that they don't have authority to draft legislation, and that it is up to the individual nations to implement laws on the trade.
"The overwhelming adoption of the Written Declaration demonstrates that MEPs' intense concern over this cruel, fraudulent and toxic trade throughout Europe," noted Betsy Dribben, European director for Humane Society International, who has been working on this issue in the European Parliament for more than four years.
"It's time for the European Commission to acknowledge that it does indeed have competence over this issue and draft a comprehensive ban of the dog and cat fur trade in Europe," Dribben added.
Likewise, Stevenson told the Sunday Herald that the commission's position that the dog and cat fur issue should be resolved either by the World Trade Organization or the EU member states was "wrong and wrong-headed."
The EU's growing awareness of the dog and cat fur issue, as well as its increasing reaction to it, is due in no small part to Humane Society International (HSI), which has been investigating the trade for years now. HSUS and HSI investigators have extensively documented the Asian dog and cat fur trade, showing that more than 2 million companion animals are killed annually for foreign markets, including those in Europe and Russia.
In fact, HSI's February 2003 investigation in Belgium, the home of the EU, may have been the tipping point in the whole affair, since it forced the government to confront the issue in its own backyard. (For more background on HSI's fight against dog and cat fur in Europe, read EU Considers Comprehensive Ban on the Cat and Dog Fur Trade.)
Bont voor Dieren, the Dutch animal-welfare group that's working with HSI, added fuel to the growing fire when it announced that two items made with dog fur contained toxic levels of chromium, according to tests conducted by Netherlands' largest laboratory. Chromium is routinely used in the tanning process of dog and cat fur to disguise the products. (For the full story, read Tests Reveal Toxic Levels of Chromium in European Toys. Will the EU Respond?.)
"The MEPs are really responding to two growing forces," said HSI's Dribben. "First, they're responding to a massive public call for a ban on this trade and, second, to ministers of agriculture who have also been increasingly firm in Council of Ministers meetings, asking for the commission to address this issue.
"The trade encompasses many areas of concern: animal cruelty, consumer fraud, and public health," Dribben added. "If the European Commission ignores the issue, it does so at the EU's peril. It is boiling down to a matter of political will, and all eyes are now on the commission."
