Foie gras petiton fails… ban EU foods that fail UK standards

‘We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to secure derogations from EU treaties to allow the prohibition of foods that fail UK animal welfare standards.’
– ePetition submitted to Number 10

The popular petition to ban foie gras has failed with Number 10 blaming international free trade laws designed to ensure the free movement of goods. The law is in dispute, as existing treaties do allow for bans on grounds of public morality and they’ve got away with it in California.

Whatever. If the law’s wrong, we should change it. And this a particularly bad law that undermines the UK’s efforts to improve animal welfare, by allowing inhumane food producers to simply export their business to another EU country, such as France, where animal cruelty is more greatly tolerated.

So I’ve applied to start a petition of my own which, subject to the approval of the Number 10 team, should appear at: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/eu-food/.

It calls on the prime minister to ‘secure derogations from EU treaties to allow the prohibition of foods that fail UK animal welfare standards’. I think that’s most reasonable, will promote animal welfare beyond foie gras and hope you’ll be happy to sign.

In the meantime, here’s a short film to set the mood:

Posted at 9:00 pm. You may read & scrawl graffiti, or trackback. The graffiti has its own RSS 2.0 feed.

3 graffiti on “Foie gras petiton fails… ban EU foods that fail UK standards”

1. Noemie Ventura says:
   

   Hi Stephen,

   Thanks for caring about this poor animals who are being tortured in foie gras farms.

   I encourage you to respond to Defra informing them that a prohibition on the sale of foie gras in the UK would be compatible with the EC Treaty and the rules of the World Trade Organisation, both of which permit restrictions on grounds of public morality. Currently, animal welfare laws in the UK prohibit the farming methods used in foie gras production due to the cruelty involved, but foie gras continues to be sold here.

   To learn more about more ways in which you can help end the abuse of animals for foie gras, please visit http://www.PETA.org.uk/feat/rogermoore.asp and http://www.GoVeg.com/feat/foie.

   Thanks again for writing and for all of your efforts on behalf of animals.

   Sincerely,

   Noemie Ventura
   Campaign coordinator for PETA Europe

   June 7th, 2007 at 9:45 am
2. Anonymous says:
   

   This might be of interest: House of Fraser department store chain http://www.houseoffraser.co.uk has recently stopped selling foie gras pate. There was a piece in the Independent about it, see http://www.independent.co.uk/living/food_and_drink/news/article2636186.ece

   August 2nd, 2007 at 4:56 pm
3. EU food petition: No 10 responds says:
   

   [...] food petition: No 10 responds Promoted by a single post to the this blog, Foie gras petiton fails… ban EU foods that fail UK standards, my petition to Number 10 received more than 300 signatures and, earlier this week, a response from [...]

   August 14th, 2008 at 10:37 pm

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