Euro MPs question legality of delayed ban on leghold traps

Date: 07/12/1995

By Michael Mann

THE European Parliament's environment committee has not given up hope of overturning the Commission's decision to delay the proposed ban on the import of furs from animals caught using jaw-type leghold traps.

Committee chairman Ken Collins has asked the Parliament's legal service to check whether the extension of the delay to the end of 1996 is applicable in the absence of legislation to enforce it.

“We think the ban should come in automatically unless legislation has been prepared to extend the moratorium. As this is being done under the cooperation procedure, the very earliest the process could be finished would be March,” said a Parliament official.

Commission officials were quick to brush the threat off as wishful thinking. “As far as we're concerned, the Parliament could hold things up, but certainly not block them. It's basically a question of crossing out 1995 and replacing it with 1996,” said a Commission official.

The Commission insists that there can be no thought of the ban coming into effect anyway, because it has not prepared the legal tools needed to turn it into EU law. This implementing legislation was due by September, but was delayed, at least in part, because the EU was coming under increasing pressure from the US and Canada not to go ahead with the ban, Parliament officials claim.

The Commission decided on 22 November to delay the ban until the end of next year to allow more time for the EU, Canada, the US and Russia to agree a definition of “humane” trapping standards.

This followed the failure of the International Standards Organisation (ISO) to agree common standards, despite several years of negotiations.

The Commission chose to proceed under two separate legal bases. Article 113 governs trade with third countries and does not require consultation with MEPs. Decisions relating to the environment are taken under Article 130(s) and require the Commission to allow the Parliament two separate readings of a proposal.

Cynics are suggesting taking the twin-track approach, using both articles, stems more from a desire to be seen consulting MEPs, rather than a genuine wish to take their views into account. The Commission is convinced that it is on safe ground and that the Parliament cannot prevent it from delaying the ban.

MEPs will have the opportunity to make their feelings known when Environment Commissioner Ritt Bjerregaard makes a statement on the issue at the next plenary session on 11 December.

Collins and Pauline Green, leader of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, are planning to table a joint resolution which will hint at the possibility of court action against the Commission.

But a Commission official claimed that it would be wrong to assume that all MEPs share the environment committee's view. “The Parliament as a body is far more ambivalent towards a ban,” he maintained.