QCEA lambasts arms exports report
EU report is 'too late and incomplete' says the QCEA
The Quaker Council for European Affairs (QCEA) has described the European Union’s (EU) latest report on arms exports as ‘too late and incomplete’. The report on European arms exports for 2010 was released almost a year after the period it covers, on Friday 30 December 2011. QCEA last week joined ten other NGOs from across Europe in signing a statement criticising the report.
They pointed out that it was released on the last working day of the year, when there was likely to be little media, political or public scrutiny.
Eight of the EU’s members have failed to provide full information for the report. They include the UK and Germany, both of whom are major arms exporters. The NGOs insist that this ‘makes an accurate analysis of the actual arms exports of EU countries virtually impossible’.
The total value of arms export licences in 2010 was lower than in 2009, but roughly equivalent to 2008. The Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) said it was one of the highest figures since the implementation of a common EU arms export policy in 1998.
QCEA and the other signatories to the critical statement said that the EU authorities appeared to regard the report ‘as a mere bureaucratic necessity, rather than an important document worthy of significant public debate by member states’ governments or EU institutions’. They urged members of the European Parliament to call for a debate on the issue.
