WARSAW, Poland – Poland’s conservative ruler has been criticized through his coalition partners and opposition for an invoice that would ban fur farms and the use of animals in exhibitions and circuses, and limit ritual slaughter of cattle.
The animal welfare bill debated in parliament on Wednesday was strongly defended through the leader of the ruling party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who recently said he was aligning Poland with European Union standards and added that “all the right people” deserve it.
But lawmakers on much of the political spectrum, who added members of the two minor partners in the ruling party coalition, said the bill posed a risk to the key livestock industry and its thousands of jobs. Many have called for the debate to be undone and reworked.
In a vote Wednesday night, the assignment to the Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture for completion.
Poland is one of europe’s exporters of fox fur and mink and kosher meat.
Agriculture Minister Jan Krzysztof Ardanowski warned that the bill would affect a sector already weakened by the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hundreds of farmers demonstrated Wednesday in front of Kaczynski and in front of parliament opposing plans to tighten animal rights regulations.
However, the liberal opposition party Civic Platform and left-wing lawmakers expressed their firmness over the government’s proposals, which were presented shortly after Polish media disseminated shocking photographs of situations on one of the country’s fur farms.
The bill would prohibit killing developing animals for their fur, for entertainment and circuses, or keeping them, that is, in the case of dogs, locked up closed or in short channels.
It would also limit ritual killing, allowing it only for the wishes of devout teams in Poland, but for export. Critics say this would be a blow to animal exporters, however, the government has argued that it supplies only 11 million zlotys ($2. 9 million; 2. 5 million euros) in taxes.
A similar Law and Justice bill was defeated a few years ago under pressure from the fur farm lobby.