A Europe without fur has been demanded from the European Commission by more than 1.5 million citizens

A total of 1,502,319 validated signatures have been delivered to the European Commission (EC) by the European Citizens’ Initiative Fur Free Europe.

The organisation was asking the EU to ban the marketing of fur products, along with the farming of animals for their fur once and for all. It was reported by animanaturalis.org, an organisation that strives to allow peaceful coexistence between humans and non-humans.

Launched in May 2022, the Fur Free Europe campaign has already gathered support from more than 80 organisations throughout Europe.

In less than 10 months, they collected a record number of 1,701,892 signatures. As a result, the signature period was closed on March 1, before its official deadline was even reached.

In 21 EU member states, the ECI initiative successfully reached its signature threshold. Triple the minimum requirement was achieved in seven of those states.

After officially reviewing the signatures that were collected in all of the member states, a final total of 1,502,319 was approved. A total of 32,615 signatures were validated in Spain.

As far as the ECI is concerned, the existence of fur farms has no reasonable foundation. Wild animals are kept on these farms in tiny cages where they are slaughtered purely for their fur it insisted.

Creatures including racoon dogs, foxes, and mink, are confined and prevented from displaying their natural behaviour added the ECI.

As demonstrated during the COVID-19 pandemic, when outbreaks led to the transmission of variants from animals to people, farms of this type pose a significant risk to animal and human health.

The ECI argues that the use of toxic chemicals in fur production makes it one of the most polluting industries from an environmental perspective.

A serious threat to biodiversity is also posed by fur farming in the event of farmed species escaping into the wild. They are subsequently considered to be Invasive Alien Species (IAS). This causes a significant adverse effect on native European fauna.

After meeting with the European Commission the organisers of ICE will attend a public hearing in the European Parliament. Following that, the EC has until the end of 2023 to publicly respond to the initiative.

Since the tool was launched, this is the 10th successful European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI). Out of the 10, seven of the initiatives were dedicated to animal-related issues.

In the field of animal welfare, Fur Free Europe represents the most successful ICE, and is the third most successful overall.

Reineke Hameleers, CEO of Eurogroup for Animals commented: “The overwhelming public support for this initiative has made one thing clear: fur must become a thing of the past”.

“We are very proud to have taken another step towards ending this cruel and unnecessary practice and now call on the EC to use the new animal welfare legislation to make the wish of 1.5 million European citizens come true”, he concluded.