Brussels, 25/07/2016 (Agence Europe) - The Munich attack could have been avoided if the European Commission had acted in 2008 in line with the review of the EU directive on the purchase and ownership of weapons, said Filippo Segato, secretary general of FACE, an association representing huntsmen at European level, on Monday 25 July when contacted by this newsletter.
The 12 July Munich gunman bought his gun, a de-activated Glock 17, online using the 'dark web,' in other words on the illegal online market, and was able to re-activate it. Under the revised EU directive currently in force, the Commission should have laid down common guidelines in 2008 on ensuring that 'neutralised' firearms are 'irreversibly unusable' (Annex I, Part III), which the FACE secretary general said it didn't do until December 2015 (EUROPE 11443).
The revised directive, the interinstitutional negotiations for which are due to begin at the end of September (EUROPE 11593, 11570), would only be able to partially avoid a similar tragedy in the future, commented Segato. The directive certainly foresees the irreversible neutralisation of firearms, but makes no mention of illegal sales. Moreover, Segato criticises the European Parliament's proposal to require a psychological profiling of the owners of firearms, pointing out that Germany already does this and the measures were clearly unable to prevent the Munich tragedy.
In terms of the interinstitutional negotiations, the shooting may lead to an acceleration of the interinstitutional talks on the directive in question, explained a diplomatic source. German finance minister Sigma Gabriel said recently on German media station Funke Mediengruppe that he wanted to do all he could to restrict access to lethal firearms and introduce strict controls. Likewise, German interior minister Thomas de Maizière called for a very detailed examination to identify gaps and deadends in the legislation. Statements which might have an impact on the inter-institutional agreement since Germany is an influential player at the Council, said Segato.
Another observer says on the contrary that recent events would not necessarily have any real bearing on the contents of the agreement in that the negotiating mandate of the Presidency of the Council of the EU has already been laid down. The Slovak Presidency would therefore have to request changes to its negotiating mandate, which would then need to be validated by the Committee of Permanent Representatives (COREPER II). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)