Canada sues over EU seal-trade curbs
GENEVA — Canada has brought a complaint to the World Trade Organization over Belgian and Dutch rules prohibiting the sale of seal products, trade officials said Wednesday.
The annual seal hunt has long been condemned by animal rights activists as cruel and Canada is facing a number of possible bans on seal products across Europe.
Trade officials in Geneva did not have any further details about the dispute, except that it pertained to restrictions in Belgium and Netherlands.
International Trade Minister David Emerson and three other senior Canadian officials announced two months ago that Ottawa would seek formal consultations over Belgium's ban on importing and marketing seal products, which Emerson called a “violation of Belgium's international trade obligations under the WTO.”
“But Canada's government will fight bans of this kind on all fronts – people's livelihoods are at stake,” he said.
The Executive Commission of the 27-country European Union rejected appeals earlier this year for an EU-wide ban on the import of seal fur products aimed at forcing the closing of Canada's annual hunt.
The EU head office said a 1983 EU law that imposes limited bans on the import of fur taken from seal pups “provides adequate response” to concerns presented by the European Parliament.
The European Commission said the population of seals in Canada's Arctic and Atlantic regions “has grown significantly” in the past three decades from just under two million to about six million harp seals alone, and that seals are not listed as an endangered species.
EU rules impose a ban on seal products derived from newborn harp seals less than 12 days old and on hooded seals less than one year old. Environmental and animal-rights groups complain that the rules allow hunters to go after the pups once they reach an age just over the ban limit.
Canada says the biggest market for its seal products is Norway, which is not a member of the EU.
Moves by several European countries to introduce national bans have caused widespread anger among industry and trade officials in Canada.
Canada defends the hunt as vital to the survival of people in a region desperate for jobs and growth.
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