By Dr Mark Bromley, Dr Lucie Béraud-Sudreau and Giovanna Maletta
The past few weeks have brought fresh reports of dual-use technical components produced in the European Union being discovered in weapons deployed by Russian forces in Ukraine. EU sanctions—adopted in 2014 and progressively expanded since 2022—are supposed to prevent such items being transferred to Russia. If the reports are true, they highlight some of the persistent weaknesses in the EU’s strategic trade controls.
States use strategic trade controls to avoid exports of arms and dual-use items from falling into the wrong hands. The controls can help to prevent transfers that violate the EU sanctions imposed on Russia, impact regional stability or enable human rights abuses. The EU has plenty of these controls, but their effectiveness is limited by a lack of coordination and coherence, which also complicates intra-EU trade.
A European Commission White Paper on Export Controls published on 24 January sets out to rectify at least some of these problems. Among its proposals is the creation of a ‘forum for political coordination on export controls’. The main focus of the White Paper is helping to ensure that EU member states act in unison when adopting new export controls, particularly those on emerging technologies. The Netherlands—which has already adopted restrictions on the export of manufacturing equipment capable of producing advanced semiconductors—has indicated its support for this objective.
However, the proposed ‘forum for political coordination’ has the potential to achieve something far more ambitious: linking the disparate elements of the EU’s strategic trade controls framework and aligning them with its broader policy objectives.
The EU’s framework of strategic export controls is made up of a patchwork of instruments adopted under separate legal frameworks, overseen by different institutional bodies. Further complicating matters is the fact that how these instruments are interpreted is determined at the national level, as are all efforts to detect, investigate and prosecute unauthorized transfers of military and dual-use items. Member states’ political will and technical capacity to enforce the controls are uneven. Thus, it is too easy for sensitive technologies to fall through the cracks, while member states might not trust their neighbours to enforce the controls as they would wish.
The following are some suggestions for how the forum could help to coordinate and plug the gaps in the EU’s strategic trade controls:
Member states strongly oppose any radical shift that would limit their final say over what arms and dual-use items they export and to whom. However, the proposed EU-level policy forum could do much good without any sacrifice of national sovereignty. The forum could connect the different parts of the EU’s strategic trade controls framework and foster agreement on sensitive issues. This would enhance the EU’s ability to achieve its strategic objectives and increase its global influence while ensuring that EU-made weapons and technologies do not end up in the wrong hands.
About the authors:
Source: This article was published by SIPRI
New Political Forum Could Help Make EU’s Strategic Trade Controls More Strategic—If It Is Allowed To – OpEd
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14.04.2024
By Dr Mark Bromley, Dr Lucie Béraud-Sudreau and Giovanna Maletta
The past few weeks have brought fresh reports of dual-use technical components produced in the European Union being discovered in weapons deployed by Russian forces in Ukraine. EU sanctions—adopted in 2014 and progressively expanded since 2022—are supposed to prevent such items being transferred to Russia. If the reports are true, they highlight some of the persistent weaknesses in the EU’s strategic trade controls.
States use strategic trade controls to avoid exports of arms and dual-use items from falling into the wrong hands. The controls can help to prevent transfers that violate the EU sanctions imposed on Russia, impact regional stability or enable human rights abuses. The EU has plenty of these controls,........
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