Brussels, 15/09/2000 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday morning, at next week's mini-session in Brussels, the European Parliament will discuss the report by British Labour MEP Gary Titley on the EU Council's first annual report (1999 Annual Report) on the implementation of the EU Code of Conduct on Arms Exports that the EU Council adopted on 25 May 1998. Mt. Titley observes that the Council's first report, adopted by the Council on 11 October 1999, shows that experience has been positive, and, in particular, that the unique consultation mechanism set out in the Code has been deemed efficient. Thus, a "large number of denial notifications have been circulated", Member States "have been engaged in active consultations on specific licensing issues", and this practical cooperation has contributed "to a convergence of the arms exports policies and procedures of the Member States". The rapporteur also notes that, according to the Council, a top priority is the finalisation of the common European List of military equipment (see below), and that the Council stipulates that the list called on to be "a cornerstone of the Code of Conduct", should "reflect the present threats to international peace and security and to the respect of human rights".
In his report, adopted in Committee by 49 to 6, Gary Titley sets out four priorities: - the Code of Conduct should be legally binding; - Member States should agree on a common list of items to which the code applies; - there should be end-use monitoring; - progress should be made on the German Government's proposal for regulation of brokering and trafficking. You may recall that, during its Presidency of the EU Council, in the first half of 1999, Germany had proposed a system obliging brokers located in Member States to request authorisation before each transaction, so as to monitor the activities brokers and export agents, who organise or carry out arms transfers from third countries to their clients without the weapons actually touching EU soil: some States, like Germany and Sweden (as well as the United States) have regulations allowing for these activities to be monitored, but most EU Member States "leave brokers free to carry out their activities as they deem fit", notes the report, stating that recently EU brokers have been involved in the delivery of weapons to Eritrea.
In addition, the report urges Member States to rapidly finalise and put into effect the military items section of the common control list and to speed-up negotiations on dual-use goods and civilian items (essentially police equipment), and calls for the prohibition o the manufacture, promotion, marketing, brokering and transfer of equipment whose "primary practical function is torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and the death penalty". The report, which stresses that applicant countries should be more actively involved in the further development of the Code, calls on these States also to ban the manufacture and marketing of equipment of torture.
Calling on the French Presidency to have the Council publish its second annual report before November, the Titley Report also places emphasis on the need for Member States to "agree on, and adopt, best practice in the field of end-use certification and monitoring", and cites, among these practices: the obligation to provide explicit assurances not to re-export equipment without prior consent (Belgium and Germany), post-export follow-up checks (Belgium and Germany), advanced export data collection systems (Germany and Sweden), a requirement that export companies appoint a "person responsible for exports" who can later be held accountable for any foreseeable diversion (Germany).