Verbatim report of proceedings

Thursday, 25 March 2021 - Brussels

Control of exports, brokering, technical assistance, transit and transfer of dual-use (debate)

  Clare Daly, on behalf of The Left Group. – Mr President, like colleagues I’d like to welcome the final text of the regulation before us. It contains a number of important new extensions in the scope of the Dual-use Regulation as well as clarifications on control and cooperation mechanisms which definitely will improve monitoring and transparency.

We welcome the measures around the new technologies legislation in terms of biotech and AI, and indeed, despite resistance from the Council, the compromise proposal expanding the catch-all provision to make it obligatory to obtain authorisation for dual-use items not included in the control list if the item is being intended for use in internal repression or a serious violation of human rights – although I find it hard to see any situation where anybody would admit that fact, but undoubtedly many of them are being used for that.

So I do think we have to be wary when we come to civilian items that can have military applications, particularly when they’re going to serial rights abusers like Saudi Arabia and Israel, and that’s why I think it’s a bit of a hard neck for people in here to get up and talk about China and Russia when the EU has been aiding and arming Israel for years, despite its human rights violations and flagrant disregard for international law. The fact that the EU is the second-largest exporter to Saudi Arabia and the UAE countries which have been pummelling Yemen into the dust, murdering civilians, starving babies – clearly human rights isn’t really a problem for us when we’re selling arms, so why welcome this? We might want to stop our military activity, full stop.