If you have read the government overview you will have noticed that even though the European Parliament voted
unanimously in September of 2006 for a ban on Canadian seal products they do not have the power to initiate the
legislation to do so. This is the role of the European Commission and the parliament lodged a request for the
Commission to initiate a ban action.
In January of 2007 the European Commission stayed the request by the parliament to ban Canadian seal products stating,
“The commission will examine all available information and take necessary measures to ascertain the use of humane
hunting standards. … It will draw the conclusions from this assessment and come back with possible legislative
proposals if this is warranted.”
The Council of Europe, a seperate organization from the European Union commissioned a working group called the
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) to invesigate the hunt to assertain whether it is a humane endeavour.
The findings were very favourable but it would appear that the Council might ignore this and push for action against the hunt.
One can only hope that the Euopean Commission is not so short sighted and politically corrupt as to ignore the findings
of PACE before making any decisions to initiate further ban legislation.
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