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13 Sep 2000

Dear Dr. Ecommerce:

What are the relationship between the e-commerce and the double use technologies and what are the measures that te EU have taken?

JMJacobo

Dear JMJacobo:

On 22 June 2000, the EU Council of Ministers adopted a new Dual-Use Regulation which sets up the Community regime for the control of exports of dual-use items and technologies. The regulation has been published in the Official Journal of the European Communities (L159 of 30 June 2000; Council Regulation (EC) No. 1334/2000 setting up a Community Regime for the control of exports of dual use items and technologies). This will come into force at the end of the month (September 2000).

This new regulation improves the existing system of export controls and strikes a balance between, on one hand, the need to control these goods and technologies and, on the other, the necessity to protect the trade interests of some segments of the European high-tech industry. Highlights include:

1. Simplification of export licensing procedures which hopefully will
result in a substantial reduction of red tape.

2. Introduction of the Community General Export Authorisation (CGEA) which is valid for most of the widely traded dual use items for exports to 10 countries: Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Japan, Hungary, Norway, New Zealand, Poland, Switzerland and the USA. This will be especially useful for companies which have subsidiaries in different member states since the CGEA is valid throughout the EU.

3. Further liberalisation of controls on intra-community shipments and replaces national lists with a common EU-wide list.

Intra-EU trade in information security items, including encryption, are entirely liberalised except for a few highly specialised products (and for these member states are allowed to issue General Intra-Community Licences valid for shipments from one EU country to another).

For security items leaving the EU and destined for one of the non-CGEA countries, exporters can apply for a General National Licence valid for exports only to one given country.

All the best,

Dr. Ecommerce

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