Brussels, 09/03/2006 (Agence Europe) - On 3 March the European Commission proposed a new directive to strengthen EU legislation on the illicit manufacture of and trafficking in firearms. The Commission proposal aligns the directive with the United Nations “Firearms Protocol” against transnational organised crime. “The tracing of firearms is vital in the fight against organised crime,” said Günter Verheugen, Vice-President and Commissioner for Enterprise and Industry Policy. Vice-President Franco Frattini responsible for justice, freedom and security said, “The proposal is consistent with the EU policy against organised crime and is part of our commitments to ensure greater security in trade and manufacturing explosives, detonators and firearms”. Currently, the requirement to mark at manufacture only appears indirectly in directive 91/477, on control of the acquisition and possession of firearms. Marking firearms could henceforth apply at the time of transfer of government stocks to permanent civilian use. Additionally, the Commission wants to extend the minimum period for keeping information on firearms from 5 to 10 years and to ensure that appropriate penalties are applied. The proposal does not affect those parts of the Protocol outside the scope of the 1991 directive, such as import/export regimes applied by the Member States at EU external borders. The new proposal applies only to the legal trade in certain types of arms (to the exclusion, for example, of military weapons) and only within the context of the internal market.