(STRASBOURG) – The European Parliament and EU Council reached provisional agreement Thursday on an updating of rules to trace import and export of civilian firearms more effectively.
Firearms trafficking facilitates terrorism and organised crime, including drug and human trafficking. The risk of illicit trade of firearms has increased in recent years with criminals constantly changing how they smuggle dangerous weapons into the EU.
The lack of harmonised rules across the EU for the legal trade of firearms has created a high administrative burden for firearms holders and the industry, creating difficulties for legitimate ownership and trade. The regulation are expected to improve the traceability of weapons and ensuring proper exchanges of information, enhancing security and combatting firearms trafficking. At the same time, the legal trade of firearms are to be simplified.
The revised regulation aims to make import and export of firearms in the EU more transparent and more traceable, reducing the risk of trafficking. Under the updated and more harmonised rules, all imports and a vast majority of export of firearms for civilian use will be subject to closer supervision without compromising trade.
The rules set up an EU-wide electronic licensing system (ELS) for manufacturers and dealers, replacing the predominantly paper-based national ones. Competent authorities will have to check the central system, containing all refusals, before granting an import or export authorisation. Member states will either adopt this electronic system, or integrate their national digital ones into the ELS to ensure better oversight and information-sharing among authorities. The Commission will establish the ELS within two years and member states will have four years to input all the required data and connect their systems.
To increase transparency, EP negotiators secured the requirement for the Commission to compile an annual public report, based on national data, on the import and export of firearms for civilian use. The report should include, among other things, the number of granted import and export authorisations, their customs value at EU level, and the number of refusals and seizures.
The revised regulation would also make it mandatory for dealers and manufacturers to mark imported guns and their essential components sold on the EU market. This will improve traceability and avoid so-called “ghost guns”, firearms reassembled with non-marked components.
The Regulation must now be formally adopted by the European Parliament and the Council before it enters into force, which will happen 20 days after publication in the Official Journal of the EU.
