Fur: more than 1,500,000 signatures to put an end to this industry in Europe!

Fur: more than 1,500,000 signatures to put an end to this industry in Europe!
14.06.2023
Fur: more than 1,500,000 signatures to put an end to this industry in Europe!
Fashion

The fight against fur has taken a decisive turn. The Fur Free Europe European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) has been undertaken to ban the production, importation, and marketing of fur in the European Union. The signatures of 1,502,319 citizens have been validated. This is a movement that seems to be being echoed on a global level, since a bill has just been presented in the United States to put an end to breeding mink on American soil due to health risks.

Fur farms: places of misery

Minks are territorial animals. In breeding farms, they are enclosed with several in each minuscule mesh cage with no access to water and they show their discontent by developing self-mutilation and often cannibalistic behaviours.

Whether its the horror that the animals are subjected to or the soil pollution and the health hazards that these breeding farms cause, they must be banned throughout the European Union.

A victorious fight which will have taken years in France

Thanks to our repeated investigations into mink breeding farms in France published in 2017, 2019, and 2020 and presented to European parliamentarians, we have repeatedly alerted the public to the conditions in fur farms.
We have also written to the prefects concerned and to the Ministry for the Ecological Transition. This work, led relentlessly, has ultimately allowed a ban on all farms breeding wild animals for their fur in our country.

Fur farms: hotbeds for contamination

At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, we had confirmation that breeding farms were dangerous reservoirs for variants
because of potential vectors of mutations of the virus transmissible to humans due to a lack of hygiene, cramped conditions, and the proximity of the cages. This has led to the slaughter of millions of mink, particularly in Denmark and the Netherlands, and even in France. We have launched a petition addressed to G20 members to ask for the urgent closure of all European breeding farms and warned the AgriPêche [Agriculture-Fishing] Council on this subject, who have not moved one bit on this issue.

Others take their responsibilities much more seriously: this is exactly what was proposed today by an American democrat after the confirmation of the outbreaks of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) in 18 breeding farms in the United States. Its bill was just filed scarcely a few days ago and intends to ban fur farms within a year by leaning on the issues of public health that they represent.

Prevent production from being relocated

The whole point of this European Initiative is to extend the ban obtained in France at the end of 2021 to all member countries, as remains to be done in Finland, Lithuania, and Romania. But it is also to avoid production being moved abroad, for example to China. We must therefore fight to obtain a ban on importations and marketing of fur in any member State.

With the validation of the signature stage having finished, it goes to the European Commission!

The Fur Free Europe ECI, led by Eurogroup for Animals and supported by One Voice and its partners from the Fur Free Alliance, has just had more than one and a half million European Citizens’ signatures validated, who are thus supporting this request. They are therefore part of a process of participating in democracy in favour of animals, which really gives hope!

To get the production, importation, and marketing of fur banned in the European Union, we must meet with members of the European Commission before the start of the summer. And thus, we can be heard by the European Parliament from next October and obtain a definitive response from the Commission before 2024.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice

One Voice is speaking at the Romanian Parliament for a fur-free Romania

One Voice is speaking at the Romanian Parliament for a fur-free Romania
05.06.2023
One Voice is speaking at the Romanian Parliament for a fur-free Romania
Fashion

One Voice is joining its international partners from the Fur Free Alliance (the coalition for which it is the French representative) to speak at the Romanian Parliament on 11 May 2023 in Bucharest. We are asking for a ban on mink and chinchilla farming in the country and, in support of the proposed law that is in the process of being examined by Romanian parliamentarians, have provided our contribution by explaining the One Voice campaign that was launched to pass the law that approved this reform in France less than two years ago.

Slider photo credit: Adrian Daniel Vasile/Humane Society International – Europe

Our fight, relentlessly led for more than twenty years to obtain the closure of mink breeding farms in France and a ban on all wild animal breeding for fashion, was presented on 11 May before Romanian press in Bucharest, thanks to an intervention by our partner HSI/Europe in Romania, and in the presence of around fifteen other friends and members of this international coalition that One Voice has been part of for more than two decades. The famous journalist and television presenter Simona Gherghe led discussions around Gheorghe Pecingina, the deputy supporting the law proposal. Ioana Ciolacu, one of the first Romanian fashion designers to publicly announce her refusal to use fur in her creations, was also present. We were in a prominent position, with France having numerous similarities with this Latin country in Eastern Europe that only has around ten fur farms to be closed down. Our investigation footage, as well as that from Svoboda Zvířat (in the Czech Republic), has also been shown in the biggest Parliament in Europe.

©Amy Veenboer/ Bont voor Dieren«France, considered as one of the jewels of luxury and fashion worldwide, knew to ban farms breeding animals for fur in 2021. They were already in decline. French law settled it: it is not acceptable to subject animals to so much suffering, the planet does not need the additional pollution caused by waste from these breeding farms, everyone’s health cannot be put in perpetual danger by such places. We believe in a ban on fur production in Romania. The population is expecting it; they will rejoice and celebrate those who vote for it, as we have done. This is the meaning of history.»Extract from a speech by Jessica Lefèvre-Grave, Director of External Public Relations and Investigations for One Voice at the Romanian Parliament on 11 May 2023

A law proposal that follows…

We urged the House of Representatives to approve the bill currently under review to ban fur farms in the country, putting an end to the barbaric practice involving the breeding and killing of animals such as mink and chinchillas. The Romanian Senate voted in favour of the bill in December last year, but the deciding vote is returned to the House of Representatives. If it is passed, Romania will become the twentieth European country to definitively close its breeding farms.

©Adrian Daniel Vasile/Humane Society International – Europe

…an investigation into Romanian fur farms

The ban was proposed last year following the publication of a shocking investigation led by HSI/Europe exposing the abominable living conditions of the animals in fur farms in Romania. The very first footage taken inside the chinchilla breeding farms showed the animals confined in dirty, minuscule cages, their paws often slipping on the mesh flooring, eventually being killed in the name of fashion in improvised gas chambers at only a few months of age. HSI/Europe has announced the launch of an advertising campaign and a petition to show public support for a ban on fur farms in the country.

Our European and International support: Romania Fara Blanuri!

After the discussion, the FFA submitted a letter addressed to the Prime Minister and to members of the House of Representatives asking for their quick agreement for a bill to ban breeding animals for fur in Romania. The letter cited animal protection and public health as the main reasons for such a ban and highlighted the decline in the popularity and economic value of the fur industry in recent years.

©Adrian Daniel Vasile/Humane Society International – Europe

Romania: one of the last countries in Europe to still allow fur farms

To date, breeding animals for fur is banned in nineteen European countries, including fourteen European Union (EU) member states: Austria, Belgium, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Slovakia, and Slovenia. A bill aiming to banish this practice is currently being reviewed in Poland and Lithuania. Two countries — Switzerland and Germany — have set up regulations so strict with regard to welfare that breeding animals for fur has effectively stopped, and three other countries, Denmark, Sweden, and Hungary, have imposed measures that have put an end to breeding certain species. Only a small number of EU member states, such as Romania, still allow this practice.

Earlier this year, the Fur Free Europe European Citizens’ Initiative gained more than 1.7 million signatures from EU citizens. Addressed to the European Commission, the ECI asked for a ban on breeding animals for fur and the trade of products using fur within the EU.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice