EU trade in dual-use items with conflict-affected regions

1 Introduction 7

2 Methodology 10

2.1 Definition of conflict-affected regions 11

2.2 National reports 12

2.3 Eurostat data 13

2.4 Use of artificial intelligence 14

3 EU legal obligations on dual-use goods exports to conflict-affected regions 14

3.1 Scope of export controls 15

3.2 Relevant considerations (i.e. licensing criteria) 15

3.3 Non-listed items 16

3.4 Transit of goods to a military end use 21

3.5 Cyber-surveillance 22

4 Alignment with EU obligations 23

5 EU dual-use exports and national export control practices 26

5.1 EU annual report statistics 26

5.2 Belgium: Flanders 27

5.3 Croatia 28

5.4 France 28

5.5 Spain 29

5.6 Sweden 29

5.7 EU exports based on COMEXT data 31

6 Conformity of EU and Member States practices with international obligations 32

6.1 Scope of the regulation 32

6.2 Scope of the licensing criteria 33

6.3 Implementation at the Member State level 34

6.4 Evidence of non-compliance? 34

6.5 Overall analysis 34

7 Conclusions and recommendations 35

Annex 1: COMEXT country snapshots and associated review notes 38

Afghanistan 38

Angola 39

Bahrain 40

Benin 41

Botswana 42

Burkina Faso 43

Burundi 44

Cameroon 45

Central African Republic (CAR) 46

Colombia 47

Congo, Democratic Republic of 48

Ethiopia 49

Haiti 50

India 51

Indonesia 52

Iran 53

Iraq 54

Israel 55

Kenya 56

Mali 57

Mozambique 58

Myanmar 59

Niger 60

Nigeria 61

Pakistan 62

Philippines 63

Rwanda 64

Saudi Arabia 65

Somalia 66

Sudan (including South Sudan) 67

Syria 68

Thailand 69

Togo 70

Türkiye 71

United Arab Emirates 72

Yemen 73

Annex 2: Overlap of conflict-affected countries, UN and EU arms embargoes 74

Annex 3: Relevant national data 76

Bibliography 78