EU sues France over bird hunting with nets

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission said on Wednesday it is taking France to the EU Court of Justice after the country ignored repeated warnings over failing to ban bird hunting with nets.

It said France still authorises the use of horizontal and vertical nets to catch certain bird species in five departments in Southwest France, despite the EU Bird Directive's ban on large-scale, non-selective capture methods, the Commission said.

"The use of nets to capture birds is prohibited, unless member states meet the strict criteria for derogation allowed under the directive, but France has failed to demonstrate that the disputed nets meet those criteria," it said in a statement.

The Commission has sent repeated warnings to France, in 2019, 2020 and 2023, and said that efforts by the French authorities have to date been insufficient. Therefore it is referring France to the Court of Justice of the European Union.

The French environment and agriculture ministries did not respond to a request for comment.

The EU's Birds Directive aims to protect all species of wild birds that occur naturally in the EU and bans activities that directly threaten them such as deliberate killing or capture, destruction of nests and removal of eggs, and associated activities such as trading in live or dead birds.

Yves Verhilhac of the French Bird Protection League said that for decades, successive French governments have ignored EU bird protection directives and have used every possible avenue to circumvent EU legislation to protect birds and wildlife in general.

"What is happening in France is catastrophic, lawmakers fail to resist populism and cave in to the hunters' and farmers' lobbies. We are tired and on the ropes, and the EU is our only hope," he said.

In an earlier bird protection case, the EU Court of Justice in 2021 ruled that the traditional French practice of trapping songbirds with glue was illegal and could not be authorised by the state.

(Reporting by Geert De Clercq, Gus Trompiz and Charlotte Van Campenhout; Editing by Jan Harvey)