Policy recommendations

  • All EU Member Sates should work towards an effective new Arms Trade Treaty and towards a new international instrument for the control over brokers. All EU Member States should implement extra-territorial legislation that enables them to control European brokers¡¦ operations from abroad;
  • The EU should adopt a legally binding Common Position on arms trade without any further delay, thereby making the Code of Conduct (CoC) a legally binding instrument;
  • The EU should strengthen the Code of Conduct so that all EU Member States are required to control all transit, are required to apply the CoC criteria for licensed production overseas or subsidiaries, and are required to demand end-user certificates and control over the re-transfer of their arms;
  • The EU should guarantee a more effective use of criterion 8 of the EU-Code of Conduct that takes greater account of the economic situation in the receiving country. This criterion should be redefined in such a way that Member States will only be able to permit a transfer if it can be ensured that the transfer will not harm sustainable development and the applicant/recipient can identify a legitimate defence need for the specific transfer;
  • The EU should discuss high military spending in their bilateral dialogues with those countries that receive EU development aid with the aim of lowering these expenditures and using these funds for development goals;
  • The EU should work towards more coherent policies; the EU council and Commission work groups on arms control and development policies should regularly meet and discuss issues of common concern.

Case: Arms-trade Policies

08-04-2008 Oral question MEP van Hecke: EU code of conduct on arms exports

08 April 2008

During question time, MEP Johan van Hecke (ALDE) asked the Council what initiatives it is considering in making the EU Code of Conduct on Arms Export binding. Irresponsible arms trade does not only directly affect human rights, it has a devastating effect on economic progress, often for years to come.

Therefore the EU Member States adopted the EU Code of Conduct on Arms Exports (CoC) [i]  in 1998. The CoC sets the minimum standards in relation to arms exports and transshipment to and from the EU. Member States must adhere to eight criteria when deciding whether to grant an export license. In 2005 the code was reviewed and the EU now plans to adopt a Common Position giving the document a more legally-binding status. 

MEP van Hecke underlines the necessity of a legally-binding status of the CoC to prevent continuing arms-trade from EU Member States to, for instance, conflict states as Sudan.

Although the EU has worked towards stricter arms export controls, Fair Politics EU stresses the EU’s failure to prevent irresponsible arms flows from entering conflict zones in developing countries. This clearly leads to incoherence between the EU’s trading policy and its development policy: on the one hand, as a major arms exporter, the EU exports or facilitates the transshipment of arms via its territory. On the other hand, however, the EU is a major donor for poor and (post-)conflict countries.

In one of the policy recommendations on arms-trade policy Fair Politics EU suggests that the EU should adopt a legally binding Common Position on arms trade without any further delay, thereby making the Code of Conduct a legally binding instrument and furthermore it should strengthen the Code so that all EU Member States are required to control all transit, are required to apply the CoC criteria for licensed production overseas or subsidiaries, and are required to demand end-user certificates and control over the re-transfer of their arms.

By taking these measures, amongst others, the EU will work towards more coherence between its arms trade policy and its development policy.

Fair Politics EU monitors the efforts made by MEPs to address Policy Coherence for Development in their daily work. The question of MEP van Hecke to the Council emphasizes the incoherencies in the arms-trade policy. By doing so, MEP van Hecke holds the Commission to its commitments in terms of policy coherence for development. For this action, MEP Johan van Hecke was awarded a coherence star.

Full question of Mr. Johan van Hecke can be read below

ORAL QUESTION FOR QUESTION TIME H-0147/08
by Johan van Hecke (ALDE)
to the Council
Subject : EU Code of Conduct on Arms Exports
Date: 26 February 2008

The EU Code of Conduct on Arms Exports is now ten years old but is still not binding. It remains a gentlemen's agreement dependent on businesses' good will, and there is no provision for any penalties to be imposed on any which violate the code. In order to prevent irresponsible arms exports from Europe - and there are innumerable examples of such exports - it is necessary to impart more legal substance to the code and to make it more stringent. There ought to be checks not only on the end user of exported arms but also on European businesses which produce arms outside the EU. It is not acceptable that, as reported for 2006, licenses to export arms to Sudan with a combined value of € 2 m were issued, despite the fact that EU Member States were officially required to maintain an arms embargo on Sudan because of the Darfur crisis.

In 2005, European governments agreed to the plan to make the code of conduct binding, but few steps have yet been taken in that direction. What initiatives is the Council considering in this connection?

So far the Council has not replied yet

 

More information?

Visit the website of the European Parliament

Visit the website of MEP Johan van Hecke

 

Notes

[i] http://consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cmsUpload/08675r2en8.pdf