|
Farmers Building
up Resistance
The EU’s
Ban on Vaccination is Illegal
by Rainer Rothe, lawyer, Radolfzell (Germany)
The ban on vaccination
was first introduced by the EU general policy guidelines 90/423 of 26 June
1990 issued by the Council. The EU-Council altered the guidelines for the
introduction of measures to combat FMD 85/511/EC (article 13), which allowed
them to introduce measures obliging the member states to ban the use of FMD
vaccines. The EU argues that vaccination would limit export opportunities
on the global market (not within the EU) because the FMD-free status would
be lost. The regulation to ban vaccination is based on a single expertise,
which has been kept secret. The ban violates farmers’ basic and human rights
to ownership and choice of profession. These are rights which the EU must
also respect and protect. (see Art. 6 EUV) Market-political considerations
must come second to these elementary, basic and human rights on account of
the great significance accorded to these rights for the freedom of mankind.
Every single farmer has a right to decide for himself on how to market his
property. Farmers’ dignity and that of the animals is being jeopardised,
although it is protected by the law and to be respected. Thus the Bavarian
Administrative Court, in a summary resolution of 11 April 2001 (ref.: 25
ZS 01.929), expressed serious doubts about the legitimacy of the ban: ‘It
is debatable whether the vaccination ban, defined only in EU guidelines, can
be imposed on an applicant, as this may constitute an infringement on his
constitutionally guaranteed rights. It is understood that EU-guidelines, used
as a source of law for European law, can never serve as a basis to violate
the rights of a citizen.’
Even though the Bavarian Administrative Court itself was unable
to decide whether to lift the vaccination ban – on the grounds that on 11
April 2001 there was no imminent danger of an outbreak of the disease, an
assumption which proved to be wrong – the court has confirmed that an EU
regulation cannot justify the violation of farmers’ rights. It infers that
the ban is illegal.
Correctly, the Administrative Court has pointed out that the ban
and the culling were disproportionate, and that other measures could be implemented
to combat the disease. This has been pointed out on more than one occasion
by the Federation of Veterinarians, the association of the German veterinarians
in public service. They call for large-scale preventive vaccinations of all
animals, which they consider to make sense economically, and ascertain that
there is sufficient vaccine in stock (cf. press release, 22 March 2001: ‘large-scale
vaccination instead of culling – Federation of Veterinarians calls for vaccination
to combat FMD’). Currently, there are numerous lawsuits of German farmers
taking legal action against the ban on vaccination.
|
