Brussels, 26/05/2011 (Agence Europe) - A report on the funding of cluster munitions, published on Wednesday 25 May by IKV Pax Christi and Netwerk Vlaanderen, cast blame on financial institutions, including several European institutions, for their investment in producers of cluster munitions. One of the authors of the report, Roos Boer, pointed a finger at “leading banks in Europe like Deutsche Bank and the Royal Bank of Scotland” for their financial support of arms production, albeit banned by several international treaties. On 1 August 2010, the Convention on Cluster Munitions, signed by 108 nations, became binding, thus banning the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of cluster munitions. The report entitled “Worldwide Investments in Cluster Munitions: a shared responsibility”, points out that close to $39 billion have been invested by 166 financial institutions throughout the world in the production of such weapons since 1 May 2008. Of these, 26 are reported to be EU financial bodies, with investments of nearly $3 billion, despite the repeated calls made by the European Parliament since 2005 for EU member states to ban such practice. To date, only Belgium, Ireland and Luxembourg have complied with the Parliament's recommendations. (J.K./transl.jl)