Hunters petition the European Parliament

The hunters' federation has presented a petition signed by 31,000 people to the Committee of Petitions of the European Parliament complaining that an injustice was committed when the EU ordered spring hunting to stop despite pre-accession agreements with Malta.

"In the FKNK's opinion, should this injustice be allowed to continue, there is not only a grave risk that as many as another 76 pre-accession arrangements be jeopardised, however also of wider repercussions that could affect all the other Member States," the federation said.

Representatives of hunters' associations in Spain, Portugal, Serbia, the Czech Republic, Ireland, France, Italy, Greece, Austria, Slovakia, Cyprus, Belgium and Latvia, representing 4.7 million European hunters, also signed the petition.

The text of the petition was the following:

"Malta signed the Treaty of Accession with the European Union (EU) on 16^th April 2003, and became an EU Member State on the 1^st of May 2004.

"EU Common Positions were adopted by the then EU Member States signifying their agreement to seventy-seven special arrangements affecting various sectors of the Maltese Society. One of the special arrangements was about the traditional socio-cultural passion of spring hunting as practised within the framework of EU Directive 79/409/EEC.

"Today, the EU Commission wants to go back on this agreement and is taking Malta to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) over spring hunting with evidence that is based on gross misinterpretation of material facts.

"This could see the eventual crumble of the other seventy-six special arrangements affecting the other sectors.

"This would also send a clear message to the Maltese population that EU membership was based on a hoax.

"This petition is appealing to the EU Commission to withdraw its attempt to nullify this special arrangement."

File picture: Members of the hunters' federation in a plea to the Maltese government to allow Spring hunting, last month.