A European citizens' initiative to ban the trade in shark fins detached from the animal's body has been a resounding success.

The petition has indeed collected more than a million signatures across the EU, forcing Brussels to provide a detailed response by July.

Launched in early 2020, with the support of the NGO Sea Shepherd, the initiative had collected 1,119,996 signatures on Wednesday, according to the European Commission.

They were mainly collected in Germany (475,635), France (289,413) and Italy (70,688).


#StopFinning EU Submission complete ✅ – now it is up to the @EU_Commission & @EUparliament


to take action for #sharks!

🦈🇪🇺 #FinBanNow.

@verajourova @vsinkevicius pic.twitter.com/WXypROaRAz

— StopFinningEU (@StopFinningEU) January 11, 2023

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Brussels has six months to react

"We intend to end trade in the EU - including import, export and transit - of fins not naturally attached to the animal," reads the text of the initiative.

“Although the removal of fins on board EU vessels is already prohibited (since 2013) and sharks must be landed with the fin naturally attached, the EU is among the largest exporters of fins and constitutes an important transit zone for their world trade,” she insists.

The petition points to "the scarcity of inspections at sea", as well as "the illegal transshipment and landing of fins", and calls for a new European regulation prohibiting any commercial exchange of shark or ray fins detached from the body of the animal. .

The promoters of the initiative will meet Commission representatives “in the coming weeks” and present it to the European Parliament.

The Commission has until July 11 to present its response: to propose a new legislative text, other measures, or not to act, explaining why.

Up to $1,000 per kilo

This initiative comes after the historic decision adopted in November in Panama by the Conference on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), aimed at protecting around fifty species of sharks threatened by the trafficking of their fins in Asia.

This trade, centered around Hong Kong, exceeds half a billion dollars per year (about 465 million euros).

The fins can be sold for 1,000 dollars per kilo in East Asia to make very famous soups of traditional Chinese gastronomy.



However, "the EU exports nearly 3,500 tonnes of fins per year, for a total value of around 52 million euros", and for lack of sufficient controls, "nobody can say how many fins are still landed illegally in Europe", point out the organizers of the initiative.

This is only the eighth European citizens' initiative to cross the threshold of one million signatures from at least 7 Member States, a double condition for it to be formally studied by the European executive.

Previous successful initiatives concerned in particular the protection of bees, cage farming or glyphosate.

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