What will happen to the Sled-dog World Championships?

Further evidence that the European Union is losing out in the global competitiveness stakes comes from David Martin, a veteran Labour member of the European Parliament. 

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He is complaining about the burden of EU rules on pet passports for dogs, cats and ferrets, particularly the provisions for those who seek to move more than five animals around the EU.

Martin says the paperwork is too much for the sport of sled-dog racing, which is big in his constituency in Scotland. So he has asked the European Commission to explain what measures it will take to ensure that, despite those rules, next year’s Sled-dog World Championships can run smoothly.

The issue is serious enough to have been discussed by the EU’s committee of veterinary experts in July, which charged the Commission with finding a solution. The world championships are to be held in Norway, a suitably snowy outpost of the European Economic Area.

The EEA has already denied Norway the dubious pleasures of whale-hunting and seal-clubbing. The place will be even sadder unless the yelping sled-dogs can find a way through the drifts of EU paperwork.