EU Expects to Issue Various Export Control Guidelines, Decisions Next Year, Official Says

The European Union expects to publish a range of export control guidelines in 2021 and will likely use the year to decide whether it will restrict exports of certain facial recognition technologies, EU officials said. Those guidelines and decisions will be released as part of the EU’s new dual-use export control regime (see 2011100021), which officials expect to take effect this coming summer.

The EU’s top priorities include guidelines for exports of cyber-surveillance technologies and more guidance on its export control process, said Stephane Chardon, the European Commission’s chief export control official. Chardon said he hopes the guidance will clarify the EU’s position on surveillance-related exports and provide industry with more information on how the EU and member states make export licensing decisions. “This is something which we have to do. It simply does not exist today,” Chardon said, speaking during a Dec. 14 export control forum hosted by the commission. The U.S. recently released its own guidance for surveillance exports (see 2009300056).

Chardon said the commission is not sure how the EU will tackle export restrictions for facial recognition technologies and other items used for repression and population control, but said he expects a decision before 2022. “I'm not going to say whether we need them or we don't need them,” Chardon said. “But I do hope that at the end of next year, we will be in a position to answer that question.”

The European Parliament’s International Trade Committee thinks export controls for surveillance and other repressive technologies are long overdue, said Markéta Gregorova, a Parliament and committee member. While she said the EU’s new export control regime is a “promising start,” she called on the EU to move faster to restrict sensitive technologies, adding that the EU is allowing its trading partners to dictate the international export control landscape.

“European companies sell their surveillance-ware to China as if they are trading with New Zealand,” Gregorova said during the forum. She said the EU should put controls on cyber-surveillance exports destined for “dictators” and establish a new international control regime with leading technological allies, such as the U.S., the United Kingdom and Israel.

“I don't really care what a piece of paper says, even if we worked on it for four years,” she said. “If member states don’t stop actively selling their spyware to criminals and psychopaths, then none of this matters.”

Gregorova also criticized the Wassenaar Arrangement for being limited “in scope and speed of adoption,” calling it “hopelessly behind the current technological frontier.” She said the EU needs to establish a control regime that specifically covers emerging technologies. “With technological arms races between the U.S. and China, being neutral does not work. The status quo does not work,” Gregorova said. “Becoming a rule-maker is the only conceivable solution.”

EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis praised the new regime, calling it a “quantum leap” for EU export controls. But he also called for more cooperation between member states and industry, saying the restrictions must be a “collective effort” to succeed. “This marks a systemic shift and a comprehensive upgrade of our export control system,” he said. “It makes clear that export controls should support our foreign and security policy objectives.”