WDC Success. EU Parliament votes to stop whale shipments through ports

Following many years of effort by WDC’s Stop Whaling team, together with some great work from other NGOs including Humane Society International, an overwhelming majority of EU parliamentarians have voted today in favour of a resolution to end whale meat being moved by whalers through EU ports.

This is great news but there is lot more work for us to do to turn this support into a legal ban on transiting whale meat through the EU. We will keep you updated on how you can help us keep up the pressure.

The EU is currently allowing ships carrying whale meat and products to dock at their ports despite the UK and many EU countries being opposed to whale hunting. Icelandic and Norwegian whalers have shipped and transferred whale products through ports such as Southampton, Rotterdam and Hamburg in the past and over 100,000 people recently joined WDC campaign to bring an end to this practice.

The resolution being put forward strongly condemns Norway’s continued whaling and trade in whale products and today’s vote demonstrates that a vast majority of MEPs are not in favour of whaling.

“WDC has worked very hard with MEPs to get them to support our view on this issue, and we are delighted with the outcome as it sends a strong signal to the EU Commission and all Member States: Killing whales is cruel and unnecessary and not at all in line with EU policies”, says WDC Stop Whaling lead, Astrid Fuchs. “WDC has campaigned on this issue for years and it is good to see progress.”

The Resolution itself gives a clear mandate to the EU Commission to do their utmost to finally stop the EU’s indirect support of Norway’s whaling activities, calling on the Commission to ‘look into all possible ways of ensuring that whale meat is no longer legally allowed to transit through EU ports, including by recommending a ban on such transits as an exceptional measure.’

The resolution also calls on Norway to cease all its commercial whaling operations and to abide by the current international ban on commercial whaling and the international ban on trade in whale meat and products.

Fuchs concludes; “WDC will continue to push to ensure that the calls of the EU Parliament – which acts as the voice of the public in Europe – are followed by the necessary actions.”

We will keep engaging with the EU Member States to press for diplomatic action against Norway unless it stops whaling. We will also work through the International Whaling Commission to press for strong statements against Norway´s commercial whale hunts.