Brussels, 18/10/2004 (Agence Europe) - Last week, following a lengthy voting session on 70 amendments, the European Parliament foreign affairs committee adopted the report of Spanish Green Raul Romeva Rueda, which called on the Council to make the code of conduct on arms exports more binding. This report (adopted in committee stage by 57 votes for, 4 against with three abstentions) still has to be formally approved in November's plenary.
The parliamentary committee considers that as part of the fight against terrorism, conflict prevention, regional stabilisation and respect for human rights, a common policy that is clear and effective with regard to controlling arms exports, is crucially important. It is pleased with the setting up of a central data base for notifying refusals to the Council secretariat (which will inform Member States of refusals opposed by their partners and requests for arms exports) but it is asking for this register to be extended to consultations between Member States on the basis of a code of conduct, as well as information on final users suspected of having carried out illegal re-exporting operations, embezzlement, or having committed crimes or other offences with the arms in question. It is calling on Member States to amend export criteria in an effort to improve their clarity.
The parliamentary committee believes it essential that uniform EU rules are introduced in controlling the arms trade and that despite the common EU position of 2003 on arms control and trade (which it welcomes), there is still a lack of operational provisions on specific control by Member States with regard to the arms trade, the transport of arms and their subsequent deliveries when they go through “third countries”. It has re-confirmed that on the lines of US legislation, a compulsory register is needed, as well as an authorisation system for the arms trade, which would also apply to EU citizens and companies outside EU territory. It is calling on Member States to include their transport and arms funding services in their legislation on the arms trade and calls on them to again study the possibility of setting up a common EU-level monitoring system and a European arms trade inspection agency.
While exhorting the Council to provide a binding legal character to the code of conduct, the parliamentary committee is also calling for the elaboration of a code on sanctions against any infringements committed by companies registered in the EU or which breach United Nations, EU, OSCE or national embargoes (amendment by Tobias Plüger, GUE-Germany). It is also seeking, within the perspective of setting up a European arms market, the gradual abolition of controls of movements in related goods and services, in the context of a common European policy for controlling arms exports via, for example, the adoption (through the EU code of conduct) of a rule prohibiting the granting of authorisation when the latter has been refused by another Member State (amendment by Richard Howitt, PES-United Kingdom). Member States are also called on to ban the trade in equipment used for capital punishment, torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
The Romeva report “calls on the Council of Member States to maintain the EU embargo on the arms trade with the People's Republic of China and to not weaken national restrictions currently applying on the sales of such weapons” (following the adoption of an amendment by Georg Jarzembowski, EPP-Germany), Aloyzas Sakalas (PES, Lithuania) and José Javier Pomés Ruiz (EPP, Spanish). It is also believed that further attention should be paid to Kaliningrad, which in the past, has been used as a transit point for cargoes of military equipment and arms from other regions in Russia destined for non-authorised final users. It calls on the Council and Commission to prioritise, in their cooperation with Russia, measures for fighting against the trafficking in arms (amendment by André Brie, GUE, Germany). It welcomes the fact that the Polish and Swedish governments have taken the initiative for holding five informal COARM meetings between former and new Member States on controlling arms exports and recommends the continuation of this practice (amendment by Marek Czarnecki, non-attached, Poland).