One of the main priorities of the EU Action Plan on Trafficking in Firearms 2020-2025 is to increase pressure on criminal markets and deprive criminals and terrorists of the means to carry out attacks.
This objective requires identifying any gaps in the current EU legislative framework/acquis on the criminalisation of firearms trafficking and assessing the need to introduce minimum criminal rules for at least the main firearms-related crimes (illicit manufacturing and trafficking of firearms, altering the marking of firearms and illegal possession of firearms).
In June 2022, the Council explicitly called on the Commission to assess the need to establish minimum rules on offences and sanctions in the field of illicit trafficking in firearms.
Current EU legislation already contains rules on the legal possession and acquisition of firearms and on the legal import, export and transit of firearms. However, there is no specialised EU legislation establishing minimum rules at EU level on the definition of criminal offences and sanctions applicable to firearms-related crimes.
In order to address the threats associated with the criminal use of firearms, the European Commission believes that robust national criminal legislation is needed to enable the prosecution and punishment of acts that violate, in particular, the Firearms Directive, the Firearms Regulation and the UN Firearms Protocol.
In 2023-2024, the Commission carried out a study to survey and compare the way in which offences were criminalised in the Member States and this revealed multiple inconsistencies and cases in which national legislation deals incompletely with the offences mentioned in the Protocol.
The study also shows that there is a wide divergence between member states in the way firearms offences are defined and sanctioned, with national sanctions differing greatly in terms of severity, which can result in a strengthening of criminal activities in member states with lower penalties.
According to the Commission, the incoherent and incomplete state of criminal law in the EU on firearms offences can hamper cross-border operational cooperation to combat them.
The inconsistencies and loopholes in the criminal laws of the Member States give criminals the opportunity to hide behind borders, or to take advantage of the differences for their criminal operations.
The criminalisation of firearms offences is a competence that the EU shares with the member states. The European Parliament and the Council can establish minimum rules on the definition of criminal offences and sanctions in areas of particularly serious crime with a cross-border dimension resulting from the nature or incidence of such offences, or from the special need to combat them, on a common basis.
The general objective of this initiative, scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2025, is to increase the level of security in Europe and the pressure on criminal firearms markets through robust criminal legislation, by adopting a directive, to reduce the risk of firearms being used by terrorism and organised crime.
Before presenting the legislative proposal, the Commission intends to examine a preliminary set of policy options that will be subject to change depending on the results of an impact assessment and stakeholder consultations.
The legal market, which involves authorised users of firearms and authorised gunsmiths and firearms brokers, should not be affected by this new legislation.
In short, the initiative aims to establish minimum criteria for the criminalisation of firearms offences such as illicit manufacturing, illicit trafficking, misbranding and illicit possession and should include firearms, essential components and ammunition, and establish minimum levels of sanctions between member states.
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