Opinion on a proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on import, export and transit measures for firearms, their essential components and ammunition, 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) (recast)

11.9.2023

Mr Bernd Lange

Chair

Committee on International Trade

BRUSSELS

Subject: Opinion on a proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on import, export and transit measures for firearms, their essential components and ammunition, 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) (recast) (COM(2022)0480 – C90365/2022 – 2022/0288(COD))

Dear Mr Chair,

The Committee on Legal Affairs has examined the proposal referred to above pursuant to Rule 110 of Parliament's Rules of Procedure, on recasting.

Paragraph 3 of that Rule reads as follows:

“If the committee responsible for legal affairs considers that the proposal does not entail any substantive changes other than those identified as such in the proposal, it shall inform the committee responsible for the subject matter thereof.

In such a case, over and above the conditions laid down in Rules 180 and 181, amendments shall be admissible within the committee responsible for the subject-matter only if they concern those parts of the proposal which contain changes.

However, amendments to parts of the proposal which remain unchanged may, by way of exception and on a case-by-case basis, be accepted by the Chair of the committee responsible for the subject matter if he or she considers that this is necessary for pressing reasons relating to the internal logic of the text or because the amendments are inextricably linked to other admissible amendments. Such reasons must be stated in a written justification to the amendments.”

Following the here attached opinion of the Consultative Working Party of the Legal Services of Parliament, the Council and the Commission, which has examined the recast proposal, and in keeping with the recommendations of the Rapporteur, the Committee on Legal Affairs considers that the proposal in question does not include any substantive changes other than those identified as such and that, as regards the codification of the unchanged provisions of the earlier act with those substantive amendments, the proposal contains a straightforward codification of the existing text, without any change in its substance.

In conclusion, at its meeting of 7 September 2023, the Committee on Legal Affairs, unanimously decided to recommend that the Committee on International Trade, as the committee responsible, proceed to examine the above proposal in accordance with Rule 110.

Yours sincerely,

Adrián Vázquez Lázara

Annex

CONSULTATIVE WORKING PARTY

OF THE LEGAL SERVICES

Brussels, 23 June 2023

OPINION

FOR THE ATTENTION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

THE COUNCIL

THE COMMISSION

Proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on import, export and transit measures for firearms, their essential components and ammunition, 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) (recast)

COM(2022)0480 of 27.10.2022 – 2022/0288(COD)

Having regard to the Inter-institutional Agreement of 28 November 2001 on a more structured use of the recasting technique for legal acts, and in particular to point 9 thereof, the Consultative Working Party consisting of the respective legal services of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission met on 15 February 2023 for the purpose of examining the aforementioned proposal submitted by the Commission.

At that meeting, an examination of the proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council recasting Regulation (EU) No 258/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 March 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, resulted in the Consultative Working Party’s establishing, by common accord, as follows.

1. The following should have been marked with the grey-shaded type generally used for identifying substantive amendments:

- in the title, the deletion of the word ‘authorisation’ and of the words ‘parts and’;

- in recital 6, the deletion of the words ‘parts and’;

- in recital 11, the replacement of the word ‘is’ with the words ‘should be’;

- in Article 2, point 26, the adding of the words ‘or temporary export’ and the deletion of the words ‘that is to say the person who, at the time when the declaration is accepted, holds the contract with the consignee in the third country and has the power for determining the sending of the item out of the customs territory of the Union’ and of the words ‘If no export contract has been concluded or if the holder of the contract does not act on its own behalf, the exporter shall mean the person who has the power for determining the sending of the item out of the customs territory of the Union’;

- the entire wording of Article 2, point 32(c);

- in Article 2, point 40, the adding of the words ‘firearms, their essential components and ammunition’;

- in Article 3, point b, the deletion of the words ‘of the Member States’;

- in Article 14(1), the deletion of the words ‘required for the export of firearms, their parts and essential components and ammunition listed in Annex I’;

- in Article 15(5), the adding of the words ‘a single’ before the words ‘export authorisation’;

- in Article 17(1)(a)(i), the adding of the word ‘customs’ before the word ‘authorities’;

- in Article 19(3), the replacements of the word ‘notify’ with the words ‘make this information available to’ and of the word ‘competent’ with the word ‘customs’;

- in Article 22(2), the replacement of the words ‘customs offices empowered to that end’ with the words ‘customs authorities designated to that end’;

- in Article 22(3), the replacement of the word ‘offices’ with the word ‘authorities’;

- in Article 24(4), the adding of the words ‘import to or’ before the words ‘export from’;

- in Article 24(5), the deletion of the words ‘parts and’;

- in Article 34(2), second subparagraph, the deletion of the words ‘in the C series of the Official Journal of the European Union’;

- in Article 34(3), the deletion of the words ‘By 19 April 2017, and thereafter’ and of the words ‘including information about the use of the single procedure provided for in Article 4(2)’;

- the replacement of Annex I to Regulation (EU) No 258/2012 with a new Annex I;

- the replacement of Annex II to Regulation (EU) No 258/2012 with a new Annex II;

- the adding of Annexes III and IV.

2. In Article 2, point 3, the words ‘of a firearm’ should have been present after the words ‘the barrel’ in the draft recast text. The proposed deletion of those words should have been identified as a formal adaptation.

3. In Article 14(1), the adding of the words ‘shall be’ before the word ‘established’ should have been identified as a formal adaptation.

In consequence, examination of the proposal has enabled the Consultative Working Party to conclude, without dissent, that the proposal does not comprise any substantive amendments other than those identified as such. The Working Party also concluded, as regards the codification of the unchanged provisions of the earlier act with those substantive amendments, that the proposal contains a straightforward codification of the existing legal text, without any change in its substance.

F. DREXLER E. FINNEGAN D. CALLEJA CRESPO

Jurisconsult Jurisconsult Director-General