Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-06-18-Speech-1-186"
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"en.20070618.18.1-186"2
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"Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, tomorrow when we vote on this report, we shall have the opportunity to make great efforts to put a stop to the dreadful cruelty sometimes suffered by dogs and cats – animals of which we often make pets.
My view throughout has been that the regulation would be an empty gesture if scope were allowed for such exemptions, as the situation would be quite impossible to monitor and the exemptions would pave the way for continued trade and for the dreadful practices described. It was not a regulation of that kind that people were requesting or demanding of the EU.
I am therefore now pleased to be able to say that we have a proposal for a total ban following discussions with the Commission and the Council. I hope that Parliament will support the proposal tomorrow by voting in favour of the amendments to which the Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection has unanimously agreed. We also have proposals concerning the way in which the rules would be applied in the Member States, and we propose that the Member States should also have to report to the Commission on the way in which compliance with the rules is monitored.
I am convinced that the public will be watching us carefully when we vote tomorrow, as there is a real demand for measures to be taken on this issue.
As the rapporteur responsible for this matter, I am both pleased and satisfied with the report on which we – Parliament, the Council and the Commission – have now agreed. I wish to thank the Commission and the Council for their constructive cooperation. I also wish to thank the Chairwoman of the Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection, Mrs McCarthy, together with my fellow Members. I wish to thank Mr Stevenson who, I know, has worked for many years in order to achieve progress on this matter. Everyone has shown a lot of commitment and a desire to obtain an outcome that is good for dogs and cats.
The work has been extremely interesting, particularly in view of the interest shown by the public in this issue. I am completely convinced that the opinions widely held among the public and among animal rights organisations have contributed very significantly to our reaching this agreement. I want to say a big thank you to all those committed people who have added names to petitions and participated in a variety of campaigns. They have shown that we no longer accept such cruelty to animals. Thank you, everyone. Your protests have borne fruit.
Many of us have seen documentaries, films and pictures showing dogs and cats having their fur removed even when they were still alive. It is enough to see just one picture or documentary showing such cruelty to animals to realise that everything must be done to put a stop to it.
The Humane Society estimates that more than two million cats and dogs are kept prisoner under disgusting conditions before being killed for the sake of their fur. The fur and skins are then sold under false designations such as ‘China wolf’ or ‘Asian wolf’ and used, for example, for cuddly toys for children, decorative objects, clothes and handbags.
We must now put a stop to this trade, above all because of the extreme cruelty involved in fur production. That reason is enough, but nor - I might add - is there any need for cat or dog fur in any product at all, because synthetic materials can be substituted for it.
False descriptions extensively deceive consumers. Unsuspecting consumers can buy toys for their children in good faith and without having the slightest idea that a cat may have been skinned alive in order to be used for that very toy.
It has been maintained in the debate that we need the skins in question in order, for example, to relieve joint pain, in other words for medical reasons. My answer to that is that, in 2007, no patient is prescribed cat skin to combat rheumatic pain when he or she visits the doctor. We have progressed beyond that.
I, as rapporteur, together with everyone committed to this cause, had great hopes, then, when the Commission’s proposal was accepted. We believed that we needed a total ban, but the Commission’s original proposal made certain exemptions possible, for example when the label stated that the fur came from cats or dogs that had not been bred or slaughtered for manufacturing purposes or when the skins concerned were personal belongings or household objects."@en1
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