ESA closes complaint case concerning whaling in Iceland

The EFTA Surveillance Authority (ESA) has today decided to close a complaint case arising from an alleged failure by Iceland to comply with EEA rules when issuing an operating license for whale hunting.

In May 2023, ESA received a complaint against Iceland concerning whaling. This alleged that an operating license issued to a company for whale hunting in the 2023 season breached several provisions of the EEA Agreement.

The complainant raised concerns about the issuance of the license mainly in relation to animal welfare and food hygiene.

After examining the information submitted by the complainant, ESA did not identify breaches of the EEA Agreement.

As concerns the animal welfare allegation, ESA notes that there is currently no EEA legislation on animal welfare that applies to hunting wild aquatic mammals such as whales. As this matter is outside the scope of the EEA Agreement, ESA will not be examining complaints based on those grounds.

The food hygiene allegation relates to the organisation of official controls in the food and veterinary area and shortcomings of food hygiene in an establishment. It is the national competent authorities who are responsible for ensuring that establishments comply with standards set out in EEA rules. ESA's responsibility is to examine whether national food hygiene controls are compliant with the EEA rules.

Based on the assessment above, ESA finds that there are insufficient grounds to pursue the allegations and has therefore decided to close the case.

Read ESA's decision here.

For further information, please contact:

Public link

Please use the above public link if you want to share this noodl on another website.