WRITTEN QUESTION E-1710/00 by Neil MacCormick (Verts/ALE) to the Commission. Arms exports.
Date: 2000-05-29
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: arms trade, common foreign and security policy, export, export restriction, military equipment, patents licence, third country

13.3.2001

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 81 E/77

(2001/C 81 E/093)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-1710/00

by Neil MacCormick (Verts/ALE) to the Commission

(29 May 2000)

Subject: Arms exports

Is the Commission aware that concern has been expressed within the Union about evasion of restraints on
arms exports to countries such as Sudan? The problem concerns licensing of arms manufacture to third
country producers. Is the Commission taking steps to keep itself informed about this risk and to forestall
it? If not, why not?

Answer given by Mr Patten on behalf of the Commission

(13 July 2000)

Member States have up to now, on the basis of Article 296 (ex-Article 223) of the EC Treaty exempted
trade in arms from the scope of application of treaty rules. Therefore, the Commission possesses neither
the authority nor the means to monitor the export of armaments or licensing of arms production.

Arms trade is currently dealt with in the context of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), to
which the Commission is fully associated. Under the CFSP the Union adopted a Code of Conduct on arms
exports in June 1998 the criteria of which the Member States are pledged to respect.

The Commission is conscious of the concerns expressed by the Honourable Member regarding licensed
production agreements in third countries. In fact, such exports could at times amount to exports in
disguise to countries where existing export controls would normally not allow them to take place.
However, at this time, on the basis of the Union Code of Conduct on arms exports, it is export licences
rather than licensed production agreements which are precluded.

(2001/C 81 E/094)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-1713/00

by Paul R(cid:252)big (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(29 May 2000)

Subject: Conditions for China(cid:146)s accession to the WTO in the textiles sector

The accession of China to the WTO will have fundamental consequences for the European textile industry.
China is currently one of the biggest exporters of textiles with a big and rapidly growing market share in
the EU. According to various reports, it is China(cid:146)s strategy to enlarge its textile production capacity in the
next few years and make a massive investment to modernise this industry and to increase Chinese textiles
exports to the EU by more than 200 % in the next few years. There are plans to employ 15 million people
in the textile industry and 7,6 million in the Chinese clothing industry. The industry would then be
employing 22,4 million people, ten times more than in the EU!

The import quotas of the EU vis-(cid:224)-vis China are among those which are very intensively used (cid:129) some of
them to 100 %. This means that the abolition of all quotas in 2005 will lead to a massive increase in
Chinese imports.

The EU textile industry therefore has a vital interest in securing a fair and open access to the Chinese
market. Trade in textiles must not be a one-way street from Asia to Europe.

To ensure this, the textile industry needs:

(cid:129) reciprocity of market access: China has to lower its tariffs and bring them into line with the EU level
by 2005. Furthermore, China has to remove all its non-tariff barriers, of which it has quite a number
in the textile sector,