EU Dual Use Reform
Position-Finding in the EU Council Working Group 1 ▪
The Council’s position is relatively clear. The following points are supported by the vast majority of Member States. No camps have currently been formed within the Council, as in previous trilogue negotiations.
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Catch-all rules: -
In the case of military end-use, the Council seeks to continue to control only exports to embargoed countries. No alternative is foreseen as to how economic operators – who after all export multi-use goods – could be otherwise legally responsible for such transactions. In the view of the Council and particularly under the German Council Presidency, the weakness of the Commission proposal lies in the fact that exports to embargoed countries are already largely prohibited.
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In the case of terrorist end-use, the rejection in the Council is also clear from the state of affairs. Individuals with a terrorist background are already listed. It is therefore even now not permitted to export to this group of persons.
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A dedicated cyber catch-all, which is really limited to the aforementioned area, is conceivable. However, the members of the Council working group insist that this can only apply as long as the application criterion remains as clear as described before.
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Decision-making rules: With regard to the structural changes to the decision-making mechanism, the Council is cautiously optimistic that such a mechanism could be politically possible. This would give all Member States a veto right and therefore pose little danger.
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Transparency: There should not be a listing mechanism of the kind which the EP has demanded for at least since the listing of export licenses in the wake of the Covid-19 restrictions. The German Federal Government rejects the individual listing of exporters and end-users.
For the Federal Government and thus the current Council Presidency, a cyber catch-all as previously described is conceivable through the procedural changes based on the unanimity principle. Even under the current conditions, the Federal Government believes it can realistically conclude the n egotiations in November.
Assessment of German Industry The Commission proposal managed to surprise German industry, particularly because positions from 2016 are being taken again in the areas of terror catch-all and military end-use of dual-use goods. From the perspective of German industry, an end-use-related export control for terrorist or military end-use would be a fatal mis-regulation with unforeseeable consequences for economic operators and international non -proliferation. Without a meticulously maintained list of persons with terrorist connections, it is impossible to foresee a terrorist end-use in any meaningful way. The same applies to a military catch-all for dual-use goods. On the basis of customer and business data and without official instructions, economic operators cannot assess whether the export of a dual-use good – as stated in the Commission’s draft – could possibly threaten international peace. From the point of view of German industry, the terror and military catch -all would be redundant. In the
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The following information is based on publicly accessible information from the Federal Government from 30 June 2020.
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