Worldlog Week 03 – 2011

Our party congress, held last week, was a wonderful occasion. Good atmosphere, fine resolutions and great lists of candidates in the ten provinces where we will be participating in the Provincial States elections on 2 March.

These are exciting times. Last week kept me busy with the preparations for a hearing on the possible Dutch police mission to Afghanistan. The Party for the Animals is against this mission as we believe tolerance and sustainability rather than geopolitical considerations should be shaping decisions. While a reconstruction mission would fit that policy, this military/police mission does not. It is incomprehensible that parties such as GroenLinks or D66 are even considering training their own enemy by distributing weapons, ammunition and uniforms to people in a war zone that is unfamiliar and where no one bears responsibility.

Fortunately we also have a lot of good news. While many other parties are tumbling over themselves when it comes to people-focused themes, we have scored a number of important results for animals. The Lower House has taken a critical stance against the government policy of self-regulation, deregulation and minimal inspections in the area of cattle transports. It now appears that the certification system ‘decent animal transportation’ is only binding on ten percent of transporters and only 1 in 200 cattle transports is checked by the Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority. The Lower House has had enough.

A motion I submitted asking for clear accountable objectives was accepted by the Lower House, which also accepted a second motion in which I asked for the checks of cattle transports and slaughterhouses to no longer be left to the sector, but for these tasks to be handed over entirely to the government.

Furthermore, we were successful in requesting an emergency debate on the refusal by State Secretary Bleker to put forward an alternative to the annual culling of eighty percent of all Dutch wild boars. A House majority wants an end to the annual hunt on thousands of boars and demands an independent study into alternatives to the hunt on this protected species.

The Lower House also responded positively to the motion put forward by Esther Ouwehand against the cloning of animals. The motion was accepted today with a large majority. The Party for the Animals considers the cloning of animals to be morally reprehensible. The cloning of animals is associated with serious health problems for animals and there are also ethical objections. The trade in cloned animals and the products of these animals (meat, milk, eggs) has been provisionally banned on the European level, but it is still too easy to circumvent this ban. This is because nothing has been arranged legally regarding the offspring of clones. Because of the regulatory uncertainty, cloned meat can still be imported from countries such as the USA, Canada and Argentina – countries that are experimenting at full throttle with the cloning of farm animals.

The Party for the Animals wants the guarantee that not a single piece of meat, a single egg or a single drop of milk from cloned animals will make it onto European shelves. Esther Ouwehand believes that State Secretary Bleker of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation should insist on a total European ban on meat, eggs and milk from cloned animals or their offspring. Only the PVV and VVD did not support the motion.

And we expect to book many more successes soon. We’ll keep you informed!