Wolf 2 — von der Leyen 0:
EU court insists on being careful with wolf hunting
Ursula von der Leyen’s furry nemesis strikes back.
Another day, another court ruling that puts a thorn in Ursula von der Leyen’s side.
The EU’s top court in Luxembourg ruled on Monday that as wolves are a protected species, they “cannot be designated as a huntable species.“ The judges said a regional law in Castile and León in northwestern Spain had violated EU environmental law because it allowed wolves to be hunted even though the species isn’t doing well in Spain
This is the second ruling in a month in which the Court of Justice of the European Union said member countries should be very careful when relaxing hunting rules for wolves and shouldn’t come at the expense of the long-term conservation of the large carnivore.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen begs to differ and argues EU law against wolf hunting needs to become more flexible because while “the comeback of wolves is good news for biodiversity in Europe … the concentration of wolf packs in some European regions has become a real danger especially for livestock.”
In December, von der Leyen put forward a proposal to downgrade the protection status of her furry nemesis from “strictly protected” to “protected” which would make it easier for national authorities to grant killing orders against animals threatening farmers’ livestock — or ponies.
Some speculate that von der Leyen’s interest in the legislative treatment of wolves may have something to do with the time when a wolf killed her beloved poney Dolly and was never apprehended by German authorities. Others point to the fact that making wolves easier to cull has been a long-standing demand of von der Leyen’s political family, the center-right European People’s Party.
The Commission President has over the past months been personally keeping track of the talks on the file, but it’s still unclear whether she can get a majority of EU governments onboard with her idea. That’s because EU environment ministers are pushing back while agriculture ministers seem broadly in favor of the proposal.
EU countries are set to come to a decision by the end of the year. But getting her proposal through may become much more difficult for von der Leyen if court rulings insisting on the wolf’s strict protection keep piling up.
The EU’s top court reiterated Monday that the large carnivore can be managed but cannot be hunted, even in a specific region, if it is in an unfavorable conservation status nationwide. “The purpose of those measures must be to maintain or restore the species concerned at a favourable conservation status,” the judges said. “Thus, where those measures include hunting rules, they are intended to restrict hunting, not to extend it,” they added and warned that “if it proves necessary, hunting may, therefore, even be prohibited.”
Christian Pichler, a conservationist with WWF Austria, said that “politicians must finally move away from their populist bogus solutions and provide comprehensive support for domestic farmers in protecting livestock.”
This article has been updated.
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