In a 550 - 49 vote on May 5th, 2009 the Parliament of the European Union has passed a law which will ban the import of all seal products only a day before Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is set to arrive in the Czech city of Prague for the 2009 Canada - EU Summit which is set to take place on May 6th.

Along with issues concerning climate change, energy and sustainability, the environment and international peace and security the Canada - EU Summit is set to center around the subjects of the International Financial Crisis and economic partnership between Canada and the 27-member European Union.

Significant commercial seal hunts along with population culls of local seal populations take place in Canada, Greenland, Namibia, Norway, Russia, as well as Sweden and Finland who are member nations of the EU.

Support for the Ban

This EU legislation follows intensive lobbying from various animal welfare groups who have long lobbyed against commercial seal hunts the largest of which taking place off the east coast of Canada which kills roughly 300,000 seals annually.

Labour MEP, Arlene McCarthy, who helped to draft the legislation claims that “the vast majority of people across Europe are horrified by the cruel clubbing to death of seals” adding “this law will finally put an end to the cruel cull of nearly 300,000 seals a year” while Rebecca Aldworth of the Canadian Branch of the Humane Society International called “this is a historic moment in the campaign to stop commercial seal hunts around the world” .

This legislation requires the agreement of EU ministers still before it can take effect, and looks to be implemented before the 2010 hunting season begins.

Seal products are already banned in Belgium and Holland while Canadian seal products have been banned in the United States since 1972.

Opposition to the Ban

Both Canada and Norway have previously stated that they will challenge the ban at the World Trade Organization (WTO) while a delegation from the Canadian Inuit administrative region of Nunavut attempted to persuade Members of the European Parliament not to back the ban.

Despite exemptions in the legislation which protect the continued import of seal products from the traditional hunts of Canadian and Greenland Inuit communities the delegation from Nunavut pointed out that similar exemptions didn’t stop “the market collapse, hardship and the suicides” which followed the 1983 ban on white coat and blue back seal pelts.

Meanwhile the Canadian province of Newfoundland & Labrador’s Minister of Fisheries, Tom Hedderson claims that the vote was far from a surprise but nevertheless a bad move adding that at least 6,000 people in his province earn at least half of their livelihood from the annual seal hunt.

The Canadian seal hunt is the largest in the world which, as previously mentioned, kills roughly 300,000 harp seals a year and exports an estimated $2.5 million dollars worth of seal products to the European Union alone, while most of its seal hunts products are sold in Russia and Asia claims Hedderson.

Canada is now threatening to launch a complaint with the World Trade Organization while Canadian International Trade Minister Stockwell Day says that the European Union’s legislation must include exemptions for nations like Canada who “follow strict guidelines for humane and sustainable sealing practices”

The seals are not only hunted for their fur but for meat, oil blubber, organs and Omega-3 fatty acid supplements.

The ban does not apply to smaller scale culls mainly for fish stock management in the EU member nations of Sweden, Finland and the United Kingdom which falls under “sustainable management of marine resources.”

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