Raül Romeva i Rueda

REFLEXIONS PERISCÒPIQUES

Ljubljana: reunió del COARM sobre control d’exportacions d’armes de la UE

Marxo cap a Ljubljana (Eslovènia) on participaré, avui i demà, un cop més, en la reunió semestral del COARM (Grup de Treball sobre exportacions d’armes del Consell de la UE). Arran de l’adopció del meu primer informe sobre control de les exportacions d’armes per part del Parlament Europeu, el ponent sobre aquestes qüestions és convidat regularment a participar en aquesta mena de reunions de treball. Així he tingut ocasió de fer-ho sota les darreres presidències i aspiro a que aquesta pràctica, que depèn de la voluntat dels organitzadors, es mantingui en el futur. En les meves intervencions acostumo a assenyalar aquells aspectes que considero millores en relació al control de les exportacions d’armament de part de la UE, així com els dèficits, els quals segueixen essent molts i greus. La presidència eslovena és important, sobretot perquè suposa la preparació de la francesa. I precisament és França qui posa més impediments a una de les peticions històriques del Parlament Europeu i de la Societat Civil: que el Codi de Conducta sobre exportacions d’armes esdevingui una Posició Comuna i, per tant, jurídicament vinculant. (segueix…)

Les grans línees de la meva exposició davant el COARM (pendents encara de revisió final) són les següents:

Slovenian Presidency Informal Seminar on Arms Export Control Transparency in arms export controls: the role of the European Parliament Ljubljana, 23 January 2008
Raül Romeva i Rueda, Member of the European Parliament, on the occasion of the informal seminar convened by the Slovenian Presidency to launch the programme of the Council’s Working Group on Conventional Arms Exports (COARM). Raül Romeva i Rueda has been rapporteur for successive European Parliament Resolutions including the "Resolution on the Council’s Seventh and Eighth Annual Reports according to Operative Provision 8 of the European Union Code of Conduct on Arms Exports", adopted 18 January 2007.

1. Introduction

I would like to begin by thanking the new Slovenian Presidency for inviting me to this informal COARM Working Group meeting. I hope your Presidency is as productive and successful as that under the stewardship of Portugal which I was particular pleased to see initiated a Joint Action on outreach. I look forward to learning more about your priorities for the coming six-months and wish you every success. Such seminars mark the launch of the Presidency’s programme in the area of arms export controls and are complimentary to the more formal exchanges we have now established twice a year in the Council and in the Sub-Committee on Security and Defence (SEDE) of the European Parliament. Past meetings have allowed us to compare approaches for achieving shared strategic objectives such as the achievement of an international Arms Trade Treaty and the transformation of the Code into a Common Position. I am once more pleased to be invited here as Rapporteur for the European Parliament’s reply to the Council’s Annual report on the 1998 EU Code of Conduct. I have repeatedly welcomed the efforts by the Council to improve transparency, openness and dialogue with the European Parliament and as core principles for the successful development of the Code. I welcome the continuation of this process. As you know the European Parliament attaches particular importance to the principle of transparency in strengthening the Code of Conduct. Transparency is an important aspect of confidence building between the Member States and with Europe’s citizens and the international community, as well as in demonstrating that Europe is a responsible arms manufacturer and exporter. Whilst the European Parliament and COARM have developed a regular dialogue further progress is necessary, particularly in the provision of timely information on alleged transfers that breach the criteria of the Code or that put particular tension on certain criteria such as human rights and regional security. In addition we still see inadequate progress in collecting comparable data, in providing detailed information across the categories in the Military List, in transforming the Common Position on Brokering into national legislation and, not least, the failure to transform the Code into a Common Position represents a serious threat to the progress of recent years in the strengthening of EU Export Controls and to our international efforts towards an Arms Trade Treaty.

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Following these introductory remarks I would like to elaborate a few points to underpin my message and underline the importance of the Slovenian Presidency focus upon transparency to these important issues.

2. Transparency and the Code

The principle of transparency was essential in reducing tensions during the Cold War and to the successful development of Arms Control and Disarmament strategies. As transparency was an essential pillar of Arms Control and Disarmament in the past it will be critical to continuing the intra-European process of harmonisation of arms export controls in the form of the 1998 EU Code of Conduct. In addition, transparency is central to achieving our external objectives such as towards an Arms Trade Treaty or in the EU Member States recognition of "the special responsibility of arms exporting states" and their determination to adopt "high common standards which should be regarded as the minimum for the management of, and restraint in, conventional arms transfers". The importance of transparency is therefore embedded in the Code of Conduct as a means to meet "the special responsibility of exporting nations" and to realise through the submission of data and best practices the harmonisation of national export control practices and systems.

The EP and Council have achieved a lot in the last ten years and incremental progress has been made to improve transparency as the basis for strengthening the Code, but let us not be complacent there is much still to do. Technical challenges remain in strengthening the code not least from inconsistencies in national data collection, transparency in sharing data, and from irresponsible arms transfers. The latter is a particular problem for members of the European Parliament who do not receive adequate and timely information on controversial arms transfers and who therefore cannot defend the role of the Code and the work of COARM in ensuring the EU is a responsible arms manufacturer and exporter. As we begin 2008, the tenth anniversary of the Code, it is important that we return to our commitments in 1998 and tackle allegations of corruption and irresponsible arms transfers head on.

3. The Challenges

This requires dialogue on transparency, which I regard as a courageous and important decision by the Slovenian Presidency, but it also requires a more focussed and determined effort to tackle outstanding issues such as:
1. a) Transforming the Code into a Common Position; b) apply Brokering Controls (and report the relevant data) as agreed in the Common Position on Brokering; and c) provide data, as already agreed, broken down by military list category for all three "rows" in the report (i.e. number of licences granted, value of licences granted, value of actual exports).
2. Preventing irresponsible arms transfers by strict application of the Code’s criteria and prompt public verification of any alleged abuses. This should include systematic monitoring and verification of alleged violations of UN and/or EU Arms Embargoes and strengthened EU processes and procedures for eliminating the use of European airspace for illicit trafficking and to improve the identification of high risk exports. Recent allegations about violations of embargoes by transfers need to be promptly investigated and discussed at the EU level and subsequent action taken. Some recent examples of controversial arms transfers spring to mind which have not been adequately explained to the public and parliaments in order to reassure us that the transfers are legal and responsible according to international law and to the criteria of the Code. They include: Chad – French armoured vehicles modernised and delivered by Belgium,Burma – arms and components supplied by several EU states through India,Libya – French arms supplies,Saudi Arabia – French and UK arms supplies,Lebanon – Belgian battle tanks (second hand out of the armed forces), EUFOR BiH – where arms were collected under the nose of EUFOR and sold off by brokersEtc,,, These are all cases which have been published in open sources such as Amnesty International reports or newspapers, or we have heard about though radio or television broadcasts but in most cases it is not easy to convincingly assess the real situation and facts. We have asked written questions to the Council on most of these allegations with unsatisfactory results. The lack of transparency in providing timely details on arms transfers that allegedly breach arms embargoes or the criteria of the Code is a blow at the very core of the EU’s CFSP and a betrayal of public confidence in you the Member States and your declaratory efforts to be responsible arms producing states and exporters.

The European Parliament will continue to demand transparency, both as concerned citizens and as Parliamentarians meeting our responsibilities under the Treaties which include a duty to be informed on the main aspects and basic choices of CFSP and to make recommendations such as through resolutions in the European Parliament. The lack of transparency and timely investigation of alleged breaches of arms embargoes undermines parliamentary scrutiny, exacerbates the democratic deficit in CFSP, and undermines the confidence and trust amongst the citizens of Europe in the European institutions and in the Member States.

The European Parliament and COARM has built a good relationship in recent years on the process of developing the Code, but we have not satisfactorily managed to find a way to exchange information in a timely manner on controversial transfers that attract media headlines. Our relationship should not be held hostage to newspaper headlines and open sources of unsure quality of information. Nor should it be rocked by surprising announcements such as in the case of Lebanon whereby the new Belgian Minister of Defence who somewhere during Christmas suddenly said on the Belgian state television that he was happy to announce that he had been able to secure a contract to sell off a large quantity of second-hand Leopard 1 Battle Tanks to the Lebanese armed forces. The deal was announced as a unique opportunity to cash in some hundreds of thousands of Euros which the Belgian army will use to buy new equipment. Such battle tanks, although of a previous generation or armour, are formidable weapon systems sent to an unstable region such as the Middle East. There was no reference at all to the tense and instable political and military situation in Lebanon (elsewhere in the same programme it was said that once again no election of the President had been possible). There was no mention of the Belgian arms export legislation, nor to the EU code of conduct. There was also not any mention of the international mission in Lebanon of where several EU member states take part. For me this means that decisions in Belgium on this type of dossiers are taken by individuals who have no contact whatsoever with their colleagues in COARM. We learned about this only by chance listening to the programme. Not even the Belgian parliament was in session at that moment and so there was no scrutiny even at the national level. I think that our colleagues in the COARM must be able to see that this is a problem which could be resolved by better coordinated and timely information and communication with national parliaments and the European Parliament in order not to undermine the effectiveness of their own commitment to control arms exports. Thinking about this, I get the feeling that the code of conduct is applied only on the small number of countries on which has been imposed a formal UN embargo (at least that seems to be the bottomline). But if that is so, why do we need such a complicated tool anyway?

3. Tackling corruption which undermines the Code, our commitment to recognising "the special responsibility of arms exporting states" and the pursuit of international efforts (including in the OECD) against corruption and progress towards an international Arms Trade Treaty; 4. Mainstreaming the implementation of the Code into CFSP and in particular ESDP, so that no ESDP mission can be charged with overseeing controversial proliferation of weapons such as allegedly occurred under the watch of EUFOR in BiH. It is now time for the EU to improve coherence across instruments of arms control, stabilisation and peacekeeping, and weapons collection and destruction. The EU is celebrated for having a "complete toolbox" for preventing conflict, promoting stability and post conflict reconstruction and Peacebuilding. Through greater transparency we aim to ensure this approach is also coherent with other CFSP priorities such as the Code and that the toolbox is complemented with effective arms export control, collection, storage, destruction and technical assistance programmes; 5. Initiate a transparent debate on the difficulties of existing EU Member States to generate a complete set of data as required under the Code on arms exports. Follow up with proposals for concrete assistance that can be provided amongst EU Member States and with third countries on generating the data necessary for meeting the terms agreed under the Code; 6. Think strategically and reflect upon the role of the Code in dealing with upcoming issues such as the absence of a regulatory framework for private militarily and security companies/services.

4. Conclusion

As a friend of those that work on Export Controls, such as the COARM Council Working Group, or those committed supporters from expert non-governmental organisations, my presentation may appear to have a hard tone. However, I believe that the Code of Conduct is seriously threatened by a lack of political courage to transform the Code into a Common Position, by irresponsible arms transfers, by the failure to publicly monitor and investigate alleged violations of arms embargoes, and from a perceived culture of corruption throughout the arms business that includes exporting governments and industry to importing governments and non-state actors. The responses to these threats are within the reach of the EU and the Slovenian Presidency. The successful transformation of the Code into a Common Position would be an important sign that we are serious about the challenges ahead and give us something to celebrate in 2008 which is the year of the tenth anniversary of the EU Code of Conduct.

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Just as transparency was an essential pillar of Arms Control and Disarmament in the past it remains crucial to the EU today if it is to sustain a united approach to harmonising arms export controls as well as to build trust externally for priorities such as an international Arms Trade Treaty. Thank you once more to the Slovenian Presidency for the invitation to address you today and may I wish you a very successful term in office.

Font foto: BBC



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