The ban should apply to the placing on the market and the import to, transit through, or export from, the European Community of seal products, says the report approved by the committee on March 3rd 2009. According to EP's Internal Market Committee, the ban should also cover meat, oil, blubber, organs, and raw fur skins and fur skins. In practice, seal products such as bags, hats, boots and gloves used by motorcyclists, skiers and boxers would be outlawed, as would parapharmaceutical products sold as Omega 3 fatty acid supplements.

The plan to outlaw on the Community market the sale, import, transit and export of seal products is intended as a response to the European Parliament’s concerns about  practices that cause unjustified suffering to animals. Parliament’s position was prompted by concerns raised by NGOs and public opinion in most Member States about the treatment inflicted on seals.

Therefore, trading in products derived from seals should be strictly banned throughout the EU, according to the European Parliament’s Internal Market Committee. MEPs have voted to limit the exemptions to a ban proposed by the European Commission and ignored the view of their rapporteur, who proposed a form of labelling rather than an outright ban.

Members of the Commission voted against various exceptions to the general ban proposed by the Commission, such as the mention to the fact that the seals are killed “without causing avoidable pain, distress and any other form of suffering”. They also rejected the possibility of granting a national derogation at the request of a state. In both cases they argued that it would be impossible in practice to monitor compliance with the conditions under which a derogation would be granted.
 
However, the committee was in favour of a proposed derogation for the Inuit and other aboriginal communities. This would apply to products derived from traditional subsistence hunting that could be traded for cultural, educational, and/or ceremonial purposes, but subject to a number of conditions. A declaration on the subject, signed by 425 MEPs in 2006, also stressed the need to take measures that would not have an impact on traditional Inuit seal hunting (3% of the world total).

Different positions within EP's Internal Market Committee regarding banning seal products

The committee’s final position was backed by 25 MEPs with no abstentions but the rapporteur Diana Wallis and six other members voted against. Mrs Wallis proposed, instead of a ban, a labelling system which she believed would be more effective in assuring the customer that animal welfare norms had been obeyed. She doubted whether the ban, based on EU internal market rules, would be compatible with international trade rules. A legal opinion published recently by the Council supports this view.
 
However, most members shared the view of Danish MEP Christel Schaldemose, who argued that this debate is more focused on a political dilemma rather than a legal one, to which Parliament must give a political response.
 
The regulation also seeks to end the current fragmentation of the EU internal market by laying down common harmonized rules that are directly applicable throughout the EU. At present national law varies, with some countries such as Belgium and the Netherlands having already banned trade in seal products and others envisaging doing so.
 
The European Parliament, which is deciding on this issue jointly with the Council of Ministers, will vote on this report at a plenary session, probably on April 1st in Brussels.