According to the Ministry of Rural Development's Parliamentary State Secretary Gyula Budai, the harmful activities of certain animal rights organisations reach beyond Hungary's borders, and accordingly those affected in Germany, Hungary and Poland should support each other.

Speaking to Hungarian news agency MTI, the Parliamentary State Secretary said that several EU experts had agreed with this statement during negotiations on the future of the waterfowl sector held in Berlin at the end of November to coincide with the Hungarian Harvest festival. Present at the meeting were Minister of State for Public Administration Géza Poprády from the Hungarian Ministry of Rural Development, the German Ministry of Agriculture's Deputy State Secretary Clemens Neumann, Manager of the European Down & Feather Association Juliane Hedderich, Member of the Board of the European Down & Feather Association Peter Spary, and Polish agricultural diplomat Dorota Bilaczak.

According to Mr. Budai, the participants agreed that they would not recognise the blacklist compiled by animal rights group Four Paws, and declared that the publication of similar lists was clearly harmful.

The Parliamentary State Secretary quoted an article published in the December of edition of German consumer protection magazine Stiftung Warentest, which states that instead of furthering animal welfare criteria, certain animal rights groups use their influence for profit and market gain. According to the publication, Four Paws handles over 65 percent of the donations it receives as "operating costs", spending only 35 percent for actual animal protection purposes. This also raises serious consumer protection concerns, Mr. Budai noted.

According to the Parliamentary State Secretary, the representatives of the countries who participated at the negotiations agreed that no ideology should support the destruction of families and jobs. The emphasis should be placed on transparency and the (re)tracing of products, including by-products such as down and feathers in the case of waterfowl processing, he stressed.

Mr. Budai indicated that the European Down & Feather Association (EDFA) welcomes the related efforts of Hungarian poultry producer Hungerit, adding that the accreditation of the various certification systems (there were 32 at Hungerit this year) leads to added costs and could have a negative effect on competitiveness.

The Parliamentary State Secretary noted that the market-distorting activities of Four Paws is clearly shown by the fact that the blacklist includes two French-owned Hungarian companies that deal in fattened waterfowl products, while two Polish subsidiaries of this same French company have been whitelisted for rejecting feather plucking and fattened goods.

Four Paws international campaign manager Gabriel Paun was making a false claim when he said that the Ministry of Rural Development had initiated proceedings against the foundation at the Hungarian Competition Authority (GVH), Mr. Budai said, adding that the GVH had in fact performed fair trade proceedings against the Hungarian Four Paws Foundation at the end of 2011 at the request of the independent Hungarian Poultry Product Board, represented by the Oppenheim Law Firm; a request that the fair trade authority later rejected.

The Parliamentary State Secretary said that claims that 75 percent of Hungarian farmers accepted the activities of Four Paws and its poultry welfare auditing system were also false. The foundation's guerrilla activities, which clearly serve foreign economic interests, are rejected by the whole Hungarian farming community, Mr. Budai said.

(MTI)