Worldlog Week 37 - 2010 - Main contents

Prinsjesdag is nearly here again and the Party for the Animals is very busy preparing for this day. In the Netherlands, the Queen reads her Speech from the Throne on the third Tuesday in September. In this speech the Queen presents government plans for the parliamentary year. It will be a strange Prinsjesdag this year, because the Netherlands has an outgoing cabinet. They will therefore present their plans, but these plans signify very little as the new, incoming cabinet are not obligated to take them on.

We have some exciting, close-to-home developments in the field of meat replacements. My husband, Jaap Kortweg and his team will introduce a new brand of vegetarian meat called Beeter to the market on 4 October. I am extremely proud of my husband who is putting a product on the market that is of one hundred percent vegetable origin. Beeter is made from soy, with long fibres so that it resembles the muscles fibres in meat.

Last week, we called the Minister of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality to action via parliamentary questions to prevent the execution of horses. The herdbook chairman of the European Herdbook for Shagya Horses, Sport Horses and Sport Ponies wrote in a letter that every week a horse is executed if the Product Boards for Livestock, Meat and Eggs (PVE) does not meet its requirements to acknowledge the herd book. The herd book has been trying a long time to gain acknowledgement from the product board, but has not succeeded. I believe it is crazy beyond words for someone to consider executing a healthy horse just to be in the right. It is a bizarre threat, but we cannot run the risk that this herd book chairman actually carries it out. And that is why we want Minister Verburg to take measures to prevent these horses from becoming the victim of a difference of opinion between the PVE and the herd book chairman.

Have you seen the funny viral video from Tippex yet? There are apparently many alternatives to shooting an animal…. http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=tippexperience&annotation_id=annotation_980821&feature=iv And another wonderful thing to see, the new campaign from a Swiss vegetarian restaurant called Hiltl. http://www.persoenlich.com/news/show_news.cfm?newsid=90173

And finally - now that the Party for the Animals is eight years old and has outgrown childish things, I have decided to step down as chairperson of the association. Don't worry, I will stay on as a political leader and as the leader of the parliamentary group of the Lower House, but with 12,000 members we need a chairperson who can give the association his or her undivided attention.

See you next week!

Marianne