One swallow does not make a summer and at an interinstitutional meeting on Tuesday 25 October, the European Commission, which normally plays the role of facilitator in interinstitutional negotiations, warned co-legislators about their lack of ambition when it comes to the draft directive on firearms, a number of sources said on 26 and 27 October.
The Commission is concerned about the impact of the direction in which talks between the Council and European Parliament are going, since the two institutions seem to be heading for a bare bones text that would not ban ownership of particularly dangerous military semi-automatic arms (see EUROPE 11655) such as Kalashnikov AK-47 or ArmaLite AR-15 (more commonly known as M16) guns and would allow collectors the possibility to own military firearms, two red lines that the European Commission did not want to be crossed.
Lucia Caudet, spokesperson on internal market and industry questions, told EUROPE that the European Commission is prepared to discuss details of implementation of the proposal as long as the most dangerous semi-automatic firearms are banned. She said the Commission is particularly determined to ensure a ban on AK-47-type semi-automatic guns, which have been used in murders in Europe and should not be accessible to individuals, whether hunters or collectors.
Withdrawing the legislation is a possible option if the co-legislators were to decide to commit to this route, but a European Parliament source says withdrawal would not be desirable because the aim is to introduce more restrictive rules than at present in the EU.
The aim of the European Commission’s 18 November 2015 initiative (see EUROPE 11433), presented in a rush after the Bataclan attacks in Paris, is two-fold: to strengthen the fight against terrorism by improving EU rules such as deactivation regulations and including collectors in the new directive, and to improve citizens’ safety by reducing the risk of non-terrorist massacres by civilians, such as the school shootout in Winnenden, Germany, in 2009.
The procedure itself is a legislative anomaly because the European Parliament adopted a text promoted by Vicky Ford (ECR, United Kingdom) that recommends a more flexible approach than the Council (see EUROPE 11572 and 11593).
British Conservatives do not seem to be smelling of roses at the European Commission. The highest levels of the Commission are also concerned about a report by Daniel Dalton (ECR, UK) on reception and surveillance of the market for motor vehicles (see EUROPE 11635). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)