Scope

Evaluation of Regulation 258/2012 implementing Article 10 of the United Nations’ Protocol against the illicit manufacturing of and trafficking in firearms, their parts and components and ammunition, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organised Crime (UN Firearms Protocol), and establishing export authorisation, and import and transit measures for firearms, their parts and components and ammunition

Evaluation findings

The evaluation confirmed the relevance of the regulation, the value it brings and, to a certain degree, its effectiveness. Member States have all made progress in uniformly applying the UN Firearms Protocol. The provisions of the regulation have been instrumental in monitoring the movements of firearms through the external borders of the EU. The regulation has enabled the EU as a whole to tackle legal loopholes, which were open to criminal exploitation.

However, the evaluation has showed that the harmonisation is still patchy as the regulatory and administrative landscape in the EU remains very disparate. This is caused by lack of clarity of some provisions, complex articulations with other instruments, the leeway given to the Member States in their administrative procedures and the general nature of the provisions governing information exchanges and administrative cooperation. The objective of improving information sharing has been reached to a very limited extent.

As regards the objectives of facilitating international transactions and ensuring an equality of treatment, the conclusions are mixed. The evaluation could not prove that the regulation has contributed to improving the position of European exporters and some stakeholders complained that administrative burden has increased. Administrative simplification remains an open issue, in particular for small operators, in a very concentrated market.

Estimated savings and benefits

The confidentiality and the patchy nature of commercial or government data have made it difficult to analyse the regulation’s financial impact in detail. While economic operators expressed concerns that the costs outweigh the benefits, representatives of public authorities found the overall results to be slightly positive.

The Commission considers that most of the unnecessary costs are a direct consequence of the Member States’ disparate practices. While the Commission’s original proposal set out to address the problems of administrative costs generated by the diversity of national laws and procedures, the evaluation could not find a positive impact of the regulation on administrative costs, as adopted by the legislator, in particular because harmonisation has not been consistent. This finding is even more concerning since 76 % of concerned operators are micro-businesses.

Which objective(s) does the Commission pursue?

This initiative is expected to harmonise the national rules on import and export authorisations of firearms, their essential components and ammunition in civilian transactions, in order to decrease the administrative burden of economic operators. Furthermore, this initiative is expected to strengthen the competent authorities in the prevention and fight of the smuggling and diversion of firearms. This initiative aims at achieving three specific objectives:

• Improving the systematic data collection about international movements of firearms, as well as seizure data.

• Enabling coordinated controls and risk assessments. This implies first to ensure the traceability of firearms by improving exchange of information and improving the cooperation between customs and licensing authorities

• Ensuring a level playing field and reducing the administrative burden placed on economic operators and firearms users by creating unified processes and control mechanisms

Another important objective is the aim to align the scope of the Regulation to the scope of the Firearms Directive (EU) 2021/555.

Estimated savings and benefits

The overall economic impact for businesses and citizen’s of the Commission proposal is considered to be negligible according to the impact assessment, considering the small share of production of firearms for civilian use in the overall EU GDP, and the share of imports and exports of such firearms in the overall extra-EU trade of the EU. Under the current legal framework (be it Regulation (EU) No 258/2012 or national rules and procedures), companies already incur most of the required obligations. The initiative will lead to an administrative simplification by harmonizing the existing EU rules and will facilitate the trade of firearms both in terms of imports of firearms as well as in exports. Harmonization will also increase security and will decrease the risk of diversion of firearms, which fuel global illicit firearms trafficking and contributes to instability and organised crime worldwide. Full digitalisation of the processes (computerised data-filing systems, e-licencing, use of the EU Single Window Environment for customs) will help Licencing Authorities to reduce administrative burden. Customs authorities will also greatly benefit from the digitalisation process, linked to the rolling out the EU Single Window Environment for customs.

Based on the limited available statistics, the analysis shows a small positive overall balance for the whole of the EU, due to the digitalisation of the import and export authorisations via the e-licensing system.