Whaling: MEPs Call on Norway to Stop the Slaughter

Although suspended in 1986 by an international moratorium, commercial whaling has never ceased in Norway, which has consistently opposed this decision aimed at ensuring the conservation of these cetaceans. Today, the European Parliament is calling on the country to halt all commercial whaling activities and to comply with the International Whaling Commission (IWC) moratorium. In recent years, Norwegian whalers have killed more whales than Iceland and Japan combined—the only other two countries that engage in commercial whaling.   In a resolution adopted on September 12 during a plenary session, MEPs emphasized that the moratorium established by the IWC in 1982, with entry into force in 1986, remains in force. However, by raising a formal objection to this suspension of all forms of commercial whaling, Norway has killed more than 13,000 whales since the entry into force of the moratorium. Furthermore, Norway sets its own catch quotas and has raised its quota for minke whale catches in the North Atlantic to 999 for the 2017 season, up from 880 in 2016. At the same time, while domestic whale meat consumption has fallen, exports of whale meat and whale products from Norway have increased significantly in recent years, primarily to Japan. However, in the absence of a direct shipping route to Asia, European ports serve as convenient stopovers for whaling vessels. According to MEPs, the European Union should ensure that these exports cannot transit through its ports. They are also calling on the European Commission to provide data on shipments of whale meat that have transited through European ports, as well as to consider all possible methods to ensure that such transit is no longer permitted.