Parliament insists that Iceland cease all Whaling at EU accession
The European Parliament today insisted that Iceland stop all whaling and drop its reservation lodged with the International Whaling Commission. The call was made as part of a resolution on Iceland’s application to join the European Union. Commenting on the resolution, Green / EFA MEPs Heidi Hautala (Finland) and Indrek Tarand (Estonia) said:
“This is a great result for all those who have campaigned long and hard against whaling all over the world. This resolution sends a strong signal that if Iceland is serious about membership of the European Union, it must respect international standards. We hope that Iceland will now join the rest of Europe in seeking to put an end to this inhumane practice in the rest of the world.”
Yksi kommentti
Dear Ms Hautala,
I wanted to take the opportunity to thank you for your amendment on Icelandic whaling in the resolution on Iceland’s accession to the EU. As I’m sure Michael Earle has mentioned, IFAW worked tirelessly to convince MEPs and the political groups to vote in favour of this amendment. As you can imagine on hearing that the amendment had passed, we were all extremely pleased.
We have since heard that the amendment has received a lot of coverage in the Icelandic media today, and I’m sure it will help take us closer to our goal of ending Icelandic whaling.
Thank you once again for your support with this issue,
Kind regards,
Satyen Sinha
Political Officer (Europe)
IFAW (International Fund for Animal Welfare)