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

23-10-2008 ALDE Seminar on arms trade puts the issue back on the EU’s agenda.

23 October 2008

MEP Fiona Hall, member of the Development Committee of the European Parliament, underlines in a press release on behalf of the ALDE group; “If we want to reduce extreme poverty in developing countries, we have to make sure that our own policies do not work against us. Stopping the export to Africa of small arms destined for illicit or destabilising use is a way in which the EU can make a real impact on lifting people out of poverty”. 

The Seminar was organised by ALDE MEPs Fiona Hall, Annemie Neyts and Johan van Hecke, who have presented recommendations to combat arms trade to the French presidency. The French Presidency of the EU, they say, should use its leadership and influence to make the EU Code of Conduct on Arms Trade legally binding. “The recommendations also call for support for capacity building in other international organisations and third countries to stop irresponsible transfers of weapons and to implement effective measures using existing EU safety regulations to target the transportation of air cargo and maritime shipments of illicit small arms”.[1]

Fair Politics EU monitors the efforts made by MEPs to improve policy coherence for development in their daily work. For their efforts on organising the seminar and presenting recommendations to the French Presidency, in which they clearly address the incoherence of, on the one hand, exports of arms to developing countries, and the EU’s development policy on the other, all three of the MEPs will receive a coherence star on our website.

Millions of people have been killed in armed conflicts in Africa. In the Democratic Republic of Congo 4 million people died as a result of the armed conflict, which is 7% percent of the population. In Rwanda 10% of the population was killed during the genocide in the 1990s. Easier access to small arms and light weapons is a serious threat to human lives in Africa. A large part of the weapons distributed to African nations are produced in the EU.

These facts were presented by Cecilia Atim Ogwal, a member of the Ugandan Parliament and the first speaker at the seminar that took place on October15th, 2008. Oxfam was represented by Debbie Hillier, who published the book entitled “Africa’s missing billions”. In her presentation, she stated that about 18 billion dollar per year is lost in Africa due to conflict. Adding to that, she said: “imagine how many mosquito nets could have been bought with this same amount of money”.

The weapons industry was represented by Dany van de Ven, who emphasized that the US, Russia and China are the largest producers of weapons today, and that they should receive primary attention. He also mentioned that during legislative processes aimed to design new instruments against arms trade, the industry is not always involved, while NGOs on the other hand are widely represented. For this reason, he claims, many of the instruments developed cannot be implemented properly, due to a lack of technical aspects being taken into consideration. Often the administrative elements weigh too heavily on these instruments, and many definitions within the agreements are incomprehensible; the definitions used often make proper implementation of the instruments impossible.

Thomas Reyes Ortega of the Council Secretariat, focussed mainly on the EU’s Code of Conduct, and how this Code could receive more political attention. The Code in itself seems to be one of the most substantive instruments in existence regarding the control of arms trade. However, the code is not legally binding, and so far only Belgium and Germany have implemented the code in their national legislation. In order for the Code to become legally binding, all the Member States of the EU would have to implement it. However, he said, an instrument that is politically binding is just as important as legally binding instruments. Focussing too much on making the code legally binding might direct attention away from the code itself, and the criteria which could be sharpened and strengthened.

Fair Politics EU takes the stance that the European Code of Conduct has great potential to effectively limit arms trade and transfers via European territory, if it is to become legally binding and if some of its criteria are strengthened. For instance, the 8th criterion of the Code is in our view one of the most essential ones as it urges Member States to take into account whether the proposed export would hamper the sustainable development in the recipient country. However, often this criterion does not seem to play a significant role when export proposals are being rejected. We therefore urge for the Code to be implemented in national legislation and its criteria to be reviewed, monitored and strengthened.

 

More information?

Our case study on Arms Trade Policies.

Visit the website of MEPs Fiona Hall, Annemie Neyts and Johan van Hecke.

Visit the website of the European Parliament.

Notes

[1] ALDE Press release; ALDE calls for curbs on illegal arms trade.