Press release - European Network Against Arms
Trade
Amsterdam, 27 June 2006
The European Network Against Arms Trade (ENAAT), and seven national
organisations* involved in research on and campaigning against arms
trade, speak out against a proposal by the European Commission for the
free movement of defence-related products between EU Member States.
They have written the European Commission a letter voicing their
concerns. The Directorate General Enterprises and Industry van de
Europese Commissie recently published a Consultation Paper with the proposal
to abolish, the principle of prior authorisation with regard to the
circulation of all defence-related products within the European Union.
For the eight organisations the main points of concern are the risk of
re-exporting and the negative effects on transparency that the proposal
in the Consultation Paper will cause.
In particular the risk of re-exporting worries the organisations. It
can be expected that companies will export their products to countries
outside the EU through the EU Member State with the least strict export
policies. With that the arms export policies of the EU will be reduced
to the lowest common denominator and the sovereignty of individual
countries to use stricter export policies will be severely undermined.
It is likely that transparency from the viewpoint of parliamentary and
civil society controls will severely decrease with the Commission
proposal. Especially when components go from one country to another it
is hardly possible for the country of origin to keep track of what
happens with the end-use of weapon systems that incorporate these
components.
Moreover it will become increasingly unclear for parliaments and NGOs
whom they can hold responsible for questionable exports: their own
government or the government of the country that grants permission for
the export to a country outside the EU, which they can't even directly
address.
In the proposal defence related-products are regarded by the European
Commission to be just another product, for which the principle of free
movement of goods and services should be applied. ENAAT and the seven
other organisations wrote to the Commission:
"This idea doesn't do justice to the incomparable characteristics of
defence equipment, in that the consequences of its use are deadly and
destructive. Accordingly, unwanted exports should be prevented. The
best guarantee for this is a transparent, verifiable and strict export
policy of each EU Member State, so that each state can be held
responsible for the export of its own defence-related products."
More information: Mark Akkerman (+31-206164684), or
Frank Slijper (+31-628504778)
The letter can be found on the Internet:
Consultation Paper_ENAAT reaction