Call for the EU to reject whaling proposals at the IWC in June
The International Whaling Commission meets in June for its annual meeting. The EU now provides a further complication to the IWC decision making process. 85 countries are members of the International Whaling Commission (IWC). 24 of these members are also members of the European Union (EU). IWC decisions are reached in two ways – either by consensus or by voting. For the passage of a resolution a simple majority of those voting is required. For a change to the Schedule of the IWC - its governing document - a ¾ majority of those voting is required. The decisions of EU members are therefore critical at the IWC, since they represent more than one-quarter of the votes. The European Commission has recently ruled that EU members of the IWC must have a common position at IWC meetings. Their collective vote can therefore make a difference to whether whales live or die. Within the EU there is some diversity of views, with the UK leading the pro-conservation and welfare agenda and others consider...