International

The European Parliament today voted in favour of compulsory labelling of fur and leather in clothing. A similar proposal from the SP was recently adopted by the Dutch Parliament, but the government refused to implement the plan. SP Member of Parliament Henk van Gerven said that he was delighted by the vote in the EP. ‘With both the SP motion carried in The Hague, and this proposal adopted by the European Parliament, the government will have to stop beating about the bush. Consumers will now be enabled to avoid contributing any longer to the unnecessary suffering of animals.'

Fur is increasingly used in textile products. Collars of jackets are in particular often lined with fur. However, it’s often not clear that this is real fur, and consumers are unaware that they are contributing to the kind of suffering undergone by animals in mink farms. That’s why in June, 2009, the SP proposed that producers be obliged to state when textile products contain fur. Now that the European Parliament has adopted a similar resolution, the Dutch government will surely have to implement the SP plan.”

In the campaign against mink farms, this is the SP’s second success in a short period of time. At the end of April the Dutch national parliament supported the legislative proposal jointly sponsored by the SP and the Labour Party to provide finance for a reasonable run-down of mink rearing with a view, in the longer term, to banning it.