The European Union Code of Conduct on Arms Exports: Improving the Annual Report

This Policy Paper presents the findings of a study on the Code of Conduct carried out by researchers from two different SIPRI project teams during 2004, with the kind support of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It focuses on the practicalities of data collection on exports covered by the EU Code in different member states, and on the rationale for and the impact of the type of data published in the EU's Annual Report according to Operative Provision 8 of the Code. It identifies a number of policy and practical issues that deserve consideration in the interests of perfecting the system, and which could be taken to heart both by the EU itself—currently preparing its first major internal review of the Code and its first report on the enlarged EU's performance—and by proponents of export control elsewhere.