The most appropriate definition
The pre-school organization for children aged 3 to 6 years, once called "nursery school", is now called "kindergarten". In everyday vulgate, however, it resists and we really like the word "asylum", clear and beautiful, which we want to use as it seems to us the most suitable to describe the tearful reactions of a good portion of the national environmentalist and protectionist world, with respect to the events of hunting in Italy. The starting point comes from the news of the start of one infringement procedure by the EU Commission against Italy, both as provided by the art. 19ter of law 157/92 on the control of wild fauna, which concerns the well-known problem of the implementation of the REACH regulation on the use and possession of lead hunting ammunition in wetlands.
Prenuptial migration
The EU Pilot procedure relating to hunting calendars is also based on these events, i.e. the alleged violation of one of the basic assumptions of the Birds Directive according to which the exercise of hunting activity on wild birds is permitted if it does not conflict with the periods of end of reproduction and start of prenuptial migration of the species. The sequence of events of the last few months is known, therefore it is useless to retrace it. What will happen is difficult to hypothesize, also because in the rooms and corridors of the elephantine bureaucratic apparatus of Brussels, anything can really happen. Here, however, we are interested in the conditions on which these disputes between the Commission and the individual Member States are based, since the complaint of an alleged violation of Community law reaching the Commission itself from a single European citizen is enough to trigger the waterfall effect. Imagine, therefore, if the complaint comes from well-organised stakeholder associations.
Wildlife choices
The involvement of the Commission is in fact a practice widely used by local environmentalist associations, which they resort to whenever they discover or perceive themselves to be powerless or ineffective in countering legislative or administrative choices on wildlife that they do not agree with. Here then, like kindergarten children, they invoke "mother Commission" which clearly takes action in accordance with regulations but, advocates the green approach without discounts which guided European choices until at least the very recent farmers' revolt, in our eyes reveals a certain readiness and sensitivity to environmentalist reports and requests. Evidently, there are those who are better than others at lobbying activities - which are legitimate, however - and therefore at making the owners of steam listen to them.
Limited number of migrants
The current outcome is that Italy will find itself in a community dispute only because at the end of December 2022 Parliament has finally integrated and updated the old state provisions relating to the control and containment of wild fauna which have been in force since 1992, also risking a further dispute due to the possible overlap of a decade between the closing of the hunting season and what is reported in the 2021 KCs for a very limited number of migrants, as well as because species considered to be in an unfavorable state of conservation are hunted without relevant national management plans. On this last point, in our opinion, it would border on the ridiculous, considering that Italy has already adopted management plans for four of these species in difficulty (lark, wild dove, rock partridge and pochard), while we only know that other Member countries, in which the same species are hunted without any plan, are the object of the Commission's attention.
The next European elections
There is little to say about the duration of the bird hunting season, except, as is very clear to everyone, that the stubborn opposition of the protectionist associations will subside (perhaps) only when hunting activity in Italy is formally restricted to the period 1 October - 31 December: a direction that, for some years, has also clearly emerged from Ispra opinions on regional hunting calendars. The game on the EU chessboard is therefore open and the next European elections, which will be held between 6 and 9 June (the 8th and 9th in Italy), will be a fundamental turning point because the new President of the Commission will be elected by the new Parliament and Afterwards, all the Commissioners will be appointed. Of course, the offices will not change, but without a doubt a renewal at a political level can only reorient the overall choices, which is what we hope to return to relationships between adults pursuing a "quiet life" in Europe, far from the constant denigration of one's own country, based on institutional correctness, reasonableness and technical objectivity (source: ANUU).
You May Also Like ..
