raporteur. – Mr President, I should like to begin by thanking Commissioner Patten for his kind words earlier on. When we are discussing the Code of Conduct, I think we have to set it in a very clear context. We should begin by recognising that the Code of Conduct is the most comprehensive international arms export control regime in existence. Nowhere else is there such a sharing of information about arms transfers. We must also recognise just how far we have come. We were told at one time that a Code of Conduct was not possible. Then, that if we had it, it would be no more than a statement of intention. Then, that any annual report would not be published. And then that the Parliament would never be consulted on such an annual report. All these things have come to pass, and we see that the Code, in operation, has developed its own in-built dynamics. So, it is actually taking Member States further than they initially wanted to go when they started off rather suspiciously with a Code of Conduct. We should recognise that and set all our criticisms in that context. The application of the Code is leading Member States towards greater dialogue, mutual understanding and greater convergence. What is fascinating for me is that the annual reports show that we are making progress on the very issues which the European Parliament has raised. We have often called for action to be taken on arms brokering, and we believe that it has been a fundamental weakness of the Code of Conduct that it has not addressed this issue. Therefore, we are very pleased that the third Annual Report states that guidelines for controlling arms brokers have been agreed in Council, that Member States should be looking to register arms brokers, and that these legal controls should be supported by penalties. We welcome that. However, the report does not say when this is all going to happen. We need a timetable for progress, so that all Member States take action in relation to arms brokers. We have called for greater transparency, both at national and European level, we recognise that some of the problem of lack of transparency is created by different Member States collecting information in different ways. We welcome, therefore, the improvements in the third Annual Report, but we are still having problems in relation to data collection and reporting. We look to the Danish Presidency, given its Nordic enthusiasm for transparency, to make progress in this area, during its time in office. At a national level, we welcome the fact that the third Annual Report has set out a matrix, seeking to note where information converges and where it does not. We would hope that that information is not used to reduce the information to the lowest common denominator; we should be working on best practice in this field. Under the Code of Conduct, Member States who grant a licence for an essentially identical transaction previously denied by another Member State should consult that Member State. We have never been clear about what 'identical transaction' means, so we welcome the third Annual Report's statement that 'there will be a broad interpretation of that phrase' – but we are still not clear what it means. Until we are clear what it means, there will be considerable uncertainty about the 'no undercutting' clause. I think we should be asking whether these transactions have an identical consequence. If that is the case, then they are an identical transaction; and we would be intrigued to know if consultation did in fact take place on the recent saga over Belgian exports to Nepal. We have asked in any case that these discussions should not be bilateral but multilateral. Therefore, we welcome indications that there will be multilateral discussions in cases where there is no agreement about whether a licence should be given. We would hope that will be expanded, although we recognise the difficulties it presents. We have also asked for greater efforts to be made on end-user certification, so we welcome the fact that the COARM working party is working towards this. We would like to see a Europe-wide database established in order to assist smaller countries, who find end-user certification and follow-up particularly onerous. We have also asked for action to be taken on licensed production abroad; and here again we welcome the fact that there is progress on this in the third Annual Report. What we would like to see, however, is clarification on the terms of the Code of Conduct with regard to the export of arms into areas of instability. To what extent – particularly given areas of obvious instability, such as India and Pakistan over Kashmir, or the situation in the Middle East – are Member States interpreting that? Finally, I would say that the third Annual Report is a huge step forward, but on closer inspection, much of it is about words and intentions rather than actions. My conclusion is this: we have come a long way, a lot has been done, but a lot more still needs to be done.

Political group: PSE