On Thursday 1 December, while publicly hailing the progress made in inter-institutional talks on the firearms directive, Parliament rapporteur Vicky Ford (ECR, UK) expressed her concern, in an email sent the same day to the European Commission and the Presidency of the Council of the EU, at the number of issues that remain to be settled.
The alarm-raising email was sent to Internal Market and Industry Commissioner Elzbieta Bienkowska and Slovak Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Peter Javorcik with UK Permanent Representative to the EU Sir Ivan Rogers and Commissioner for the Security Union Sir Julian King both in copy. In it, Ford says she is “extremely concerned at the current situation”, there being a number of issues yet to be agreed. “As discussed last week unless there is movement towards the Parliament position I strongly believe the proposal risks being rejected in the plenary”, she says.
The MEP identifies three major issues: automatic firearms converted to semi-automatic (category A6), medical assessments and deactivations. She is concerned at the lack of progress made in technical discussions on exemptions for sports shooters. She is annoyed at the slowness of the European Commission in sharing a compromise proposal. She says that the informal proposal brought forward by the Commission covers only one part of the deactivation package and even that part is “not acceptable”. She says a solution has to be found so that the concerns of holders of deactivated firearms are fairly addressed.
What issues remain to be settled? Firstly, the matter of defining the categories of firearms – category A, prohibited firearms, and category B, firearms under authorisations – is the main Gordian knot. The Commission’s initial proposal was to prohibit all semi-automatic civil guns that resemble automatic war weapons (see EUROPE 11433). The institutions are agreed on the need for objective criteria as to which semi-automatic firearms would be prohibited. The current proposal from the Parliament and the Council is much more restrictive, to the great disquiet of the Commission (see EUROPE 11656).
The Council and the Parliament have still to come to agreement on authorisations to acquire and possess firearms and on medical examinations. The Council, it would seem, has rejected all the proposals thus far put forward by the Parliament.
The situation of sports shooters is a further point to be clarified. Parliament, unlike the Council, wants authorisations for all firearms holders, not just those for sports shooters, to include medical assessments (see EUROPE 11671).
Technical questions remain to be answered on definitions, registration and monitoring in exemptions to the prohibitions for museums and collectors (see EUROPE 11645).
Parliament wants to press the Commission to adopt a new implementing regulation on deactivation standards in order to harmonise the deactivation methods in member states. One of the difficulties is that not everything depends on the Commission. The information provided by the member state experts on the working party is also important, a source said.
Other issues remain pending: marking requirements and the data-filing system, the scope of the directive, reference to terrorism in the recitals, the role of and action to be taken by brokers in suspicious transactions, and the timescale for transposition of the directive (Parliament wants 12 months after publication in the Official Journal, whereas the member states want 18 months and 36 months for the data-filing system).
The two joint legislative institutions are preparing for long, stormy negotiations on Monday evening 5 December. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)