Interior Commissioner Ylva Johansson on Thursday proposed stricter conditions for the export and import of firearms to prevent unauthorized devices from reaching European civilians, while also proposing to simplify bureaucracy for manufacturers, sellers and customers of legal weapons.
Brussels estimates that there are more than 35 million illegal firearms in the European Union, a territory where some 630,000 weapons are listed as stolen or lost in the Schengen Information System, and warns that the use of these devices by criminal gangs «threatens» European societies.
«EU internal security to reduce the illegal use and trafficking of firearms must be based on good police cooperation, good intelligence and transparent procedures,» Johansson said at a hearing in Brussels to outline the details of his proposal.
Among the ideas in Johansson’s revision of the directive is to introduce stricter technical standards so that alarm and signal weapons — designed to fire only blanks, pyrotechnics or tear gas — cannot be converted into «lethal» weapons, and to create a list of «non-convertible» weapons.
Brussels also wants to act against the components of semi-finished firearms so that they can only be imported by licensed dealers and thus try to reduce the presence of «ghost» weapons that arrive in the European Union without being registered.
«These are devices not considered as firearms that can easily be imported and then conclude their assembly in the European Union, for example as happened with those used in the Bataclan and Charles Hebdo attacks (in Paris),» Johansson has recalled.
If the new rule goes ahead, which will now be the subject of negotiations between the European Parliament and the Council, the firearms considered most dangerous will have to have a certificate attesting that the buyer is the final recipient and does not intend to transfer it to a third party.
Another key element of the reform is to introduce stricter controls on authorizations to market firearms, so that national authorities must check before issuing the permit whether the person applying for it has been refused such an authorization in another Member State. To speed up this process, Brussels wants member states to share information on denied permits with the other bloc partners.
The Commissioner added that together with the effort to tighten the rules against illicit trade, the Community services also want to «facilitate the movement of those who travel legally with weapons, for example for exhibitions or sporting competitions, by simplifying the bureaucratic procedures», for which reason they are also proposing several regulatory changes to reduce and speed up the bureaucracy in the sector.
