On Thursday 11 January, Klaus Buchner MEP (Greens/EFA, Germany), the European Parliament rapporteur for the issue, told EUROPE that the new EU control system for dual use goods will not be established before 2019. This new system is to have a human security dimension aiming to prevent human rights violations linked to cyber-surveillance technologies in authoritarian countries.
At its plenary session in Strasbourg on Wednesday 17 January, the European Parliament is expected to confirm the mandate proposal drafted by Buchner, which was adopted in the international trade (INTA) committee on 23 November 2017 by 34 votes in favour to one against, with two abstentions (see EUROPE 11911), to negotiate in trialogue with the Council on the text proposed by the Commission in September 2016 to recast the EU control system for the export, transfer, brokering, technical assistance and transit of dual-use items, so as to adapt it to the new risks linked to new technology (see EUROPE 11634).
However, the Council will not be in a position to negotiate in trialogue with the Parliament on this text before the Austrian Presidency takes the reins of the EU Council in the second half of 2018, because "most countries have still not worked on this proposal seriously", Buchner states.
Dual use goods can be used for both military and civilian purposes, and include items as diverse as drones, high-performance computers, cyber-security testing equipment and certain chemicals, such as fertilisers, which can be used for agriculture or as a base for explosives.
Dual use goods, which can be used abusively for repression, the creation of weapons of mass destruction or terrorism, represent an €18 billion market. They account for nearly 10% of EU exports, with over 50% of them coming from Germany.
As part of an EU trade policy based on values, Buchner calls for the regulation on the control of dual use goods to be brought into line with the anti-torture regulation and that on war minerals, explicitly banning the export of cybernetic goods when there are risks of human rights violation.
The recast of the regulation on the control of dual use goods provides for additions to be made to the list of goods subject to the approval of national authorities before being exported, and of cyber-surveillance tools that are widely used by authoritarian regimes to crack down on political opponents and the civilian population – equipment enabling portable phones to be intercepted, computers to be hacked, passwords to be bypassed or internet-users to be identified.
Especially targeted are items such as the Finisher Software from the German company Gamma Deutschland, which helps filter identities from the internet which was sold to Egypt to use against revolts there in the Arab Spring of 2011, and the Lawful Interception Gateways (LIGs) and Monitoring Centres sold to Iran in 2010 to bring protesters to jail.
Following its rapporteur, the INTA committee supports the removal from the list, however, of encryption technology, which the MEPs deem essential for the legitimate defence of human rights protesters.
In order to strengthen human rights protection, the MEPs support the inclusion in the revised regulation of precise criteria and definitions regarding the strengthening of the protection of the private life and data, as well as the freedom of assembly.
Buchner advocates the inclusion of a catch-all clause on the protection of human rights for cyber-surveillance items, so that exports of new technology at risk can be controlled before causing damage.
The rapporteur also wants to enable member states to gradually create a list of cyber-surveillance items that goes beyond the international Wassenaar arrangement.
Buchner also wants to increase transparency by encouraging member states to publish data on export licences that have been issued or refused to produce comparable data in order to legislate better and make research progress.
In addition, Buchner defends the introduction of arrangements aiming to ensure a level playing field between the member states by establishing similar punishments for cases of non-respect of the rules, as well as greater transparency of the decisions of national authorities on export controls. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)