Inter-institutional negotiations resulted in an agreement on Monday 9 November over the new regulation for control of dual use items, which relates to products where civil applications may be diverted and violate human rights.
The EU is therefore tightening its rules on the export of products such as high-performance computers, drones, certain categories of chemicals, and telecommunications technology.
This new regulation, which replaces the 2009 regulation, now includes products related to cyber-surveillance. Export licences will now be issued or refused according to updated criteria, which includes criteria on emerging technologies. Furthermore, companies who manufacture these types of goods will have to produce an impact and risk study for the relevant products. This evaluation may, in turn, be carried out by the Member States in case of doubt.
In the interests of transparency, representatives of the European Parliament insisted in trilogue that the text should include an obligation for Member States to draw up a public annual report looking at exports of these products. “We have managed to increase transparency by insisting on listing exports in greater detail in the annual export control reports, which will make it much harder to hide suspicious items”, said the chair of the European Parliament's Committee on International Trade, Bernd Lange (S&D, Germany).
The new regulation provides for both increased coordination between Member States, as well as between different authorities, from licensing through to customs checks. The rapporteur of the text, Markéta Gregorová (Greens/EFA, Czech Republic) said: “Authoritarian regimes will no longer be able to secretly get their hands on European cyber-surveillance technologies”.
For its part, the European People's Party (EPP) welcomed the agreement, while insisting on a balance between controls and trade: “the EPP Group was the only group to advocate the need to avoid unnecessary burden and costs for thousands of European companies that deal with dual use goods. We have simplified the export processes, harmonised the duration of licences given to the items, and clearly defined which technologies will be subject to control or not”, said MEP Sven Simon (EPP, Germany), the shadow rapporteur for the text. Procedures have been harmonised and simplified, particularly regarding low-risk products.
With regard to the granting of licences, these will be divided into just two new categories: one for cryptographic goods and the other for intra-group transfers of technology within certain circumstances. In the view of the EU Council, this will avoid any administrative overload for companies and licensing authorities.
The text will have to be formally approved by both the European Parliament and the EU Council before it enters into force. The committee hopes that the new regulation will be published in the spring of 2021. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)