Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-12-15-Speech-1-184"
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"en.20081215.17.1-184"2
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".
Mr President, the main aim of the Commission’s proposal for this directive is ‘the smooth functioning of the internal market’. Its goal is to facilitate intra-European arms exports, which also, of course, affects arms exports outside the EU. In essence, it means that arms exports will increase, and Mrs Rühle’s report does nothing to change this basic direction taken by the directive. There are some positive amendments, such as the exclusion of anti-personnel mines and cluster munitions. This is – and even the European Parliament’s press release says so – clearly about strengthening the European arms industry against external competition. It reinforces the trend towards the oligopolisation of the EU’s arms industry, as only six EU states have a major military-industrial complex: Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Italy and Spain. Above all, this is about giving those countries export aid. Intra-Community arms exports also mean arms exports to states at war, such as the United Kingdom in Iraq and Germany in Afghanistan.
If one looks at recital 24 of the directive, even the Code of Conduct, which has now happily become legally binding, is left to the discretion of the Member States. It states, ‘as the decision to authorise or deny an export is and should remain at the discretion of each Member State, such cooperation should only stem from the voluntary coordination of export policies’. We do not need assistance for the arms and military market, we need a directive on disarmament and weapon conversion."@en1
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