Evaluation of the Firearms Directive Final report Prepared by: December 2014 11/12/2014 Page 1 of 106 Evaluation of the Firearms Directive - Final Report - DISCLAIMER By the European Commission, Directorate-General for Enterprise and Industry This document has been prepared for the European Commission however it reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. ISBN: 978-92-79-35113-6 DOI: 10.2769/89829 © European Union, 2014. All rights reserved. Certain parts are licensed under conditions to the EU. Reproduction is authorized provided the source is acknowledged. 11/12/2014 Page 2 of 106 Evaluation of the Firearms Directive - Final Report - Table of contents 1 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY AND THE FIREARMS DIRECTIVE..................... 5 1.1 Objectives and scope of the study................................................................. 5 1.2 The Firearms Directive: policy context and intervention logic ............................. 6 1.2.1 The Firearms Directive and its provisions ........................................... 7 1.2.2 The relevant policy context ........................................................... 11 1.2.3 The objective tree ....................................................................... 12 1.3 Evaluation methodology ............................................................................ 19 2 MARKET AND SECURITY CONTEXT ............................................................. 22 2.1 Key features of the civilian firearms market .................................................. 22 2.1.1 The size of the sector at EU level ................................................... 23 2.1.2 The size of the sector at MS level ................................................... 27 2.1.3 Trade and competitiveness at EU level ............................................ 31 2.1.4 Trade and competitiveness at MS level ............................................ 34 2.2 Key security aspects related to civilian firearms ............................................ 38 2.2.1 Security concerns ........................................................................ 38 2.2.2 Emerging issues .......................................................................... 50 3 EVIDENCE ON THE DIRECTIVE’S PROVISIONS ............................................. 51 3.1 Categories .............................................................................................. 51 3.2 Licensing for ownership, dealers and brokers ................................................ 56 3.2.1 Private owners ............................................................................ 56 3.2.2 Dealers and brokers ..................................................................... 58 3.3 European Firearms Pass (EFP) .................................................................... 59 3.4 Marking and traceability ............................................................................ 63 3.4.1 Marking ..................................................................................... 63 3.4.2 Traceability ................................................................................ 67 3.5 Deactivation ........................................................................................... 70 3.6 Penalties ................................................................................................ 72 4 EVALUATION ISSUES ............................................................................... 73 4.1 The consistency ....................................................................................... 73 4.2 The relevance ......................................................................................... 77 4.3 The effectiveness ..................................................................................... 80 4.4 The efficiency .......................................................................................... 82 4.5 The added value of the EU intervention ....................................................... 89 5 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ................................................... 90 11/12/2014 Page 3 of 106 Evaluation of the Firearms Directive - Final Report - List of abbreviations CIP Permanent International Commission for Firearms Testing EFP European Firearms Pass EU European Union LFS Labour Force Survey MS Member State NA Not Applicable NACE Nomenclature statistique des activités économiques dans la Communauté européenne (Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community) NGO(s) Non-governmental Organisation(s) OCG Organised Crime Group RCA Revealed Comparative Advantage SALW Small Arms and Light Weapons SBS Structural Business Statistics SIS Schengen Information System SME(s) Small and Medium Enterprise(s) ToR Terms of Reference UN United Nations UNODC United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime UNFP United Nations Firearms Protocol WFSA World Forum on Shooting Activities EU Member States AT Austria BE Belgium BG Bulgaria CY Cyprus CZ Czech Republic DE Germany DK Denmark EE Estonia EL Greece ES Spain FI Finland FR France HR Croatia HU Hungary IE Ireland IT Italy LT Lithuania LU Luxembourg LV Latvia MT Malta NL Netherlands PL Poland PT Portugal RO Romania SE Sweden SI Slovenia SK Slovakia UK United Kingdom 11/12/2014 Page 4 of 106 Evaluation of the Firearms Directive - Final Report - 1 Introduction to the study and the Firearms Directive 1.1 Objectives and scope of the study This report presents the results of the evaluation study commissioned by Directorate General Enterprise and Industry with the aim of assessing the implementation of the Firearms Directive1 in all MS. The evaluation aims at providing the necessary input for the report that the European Commission shall, by the end of July 2015, “submit […] to the European Parliament and the Council on the situation resulting from the application of this Directive, accompanied, if appropriate, by amending proposals”.2 This evaluation is also included in the Commission's Regulatory Fitness and Performance Programme (REFIT), which aims at reviewing the entire stock of EU legislation to identify burdens, inconsistencies, gaps, overlaps and obsolete measures and to make, where necessary, proposals to follow-up on the findings of the review (COM(2013)685 and Annex). The evaluation study addresses five evaluation criteria identified in the Terms of Reference (ToR) that are: 1. Consistency of the implementation of the Directive’s provisions, of the interpretation of the key terms and an overall coherence of the Directive with other pieces of legislation dealing with weapons;3 2. Relevance of such provisions with respect to the existing needs in the area of internal market functioning and EU citizens’ security;4 3. Effectiveness in terms of the extent to which provisions have contributed to the achievement of set targets, i.e. their actual impacts;5 4. Efficiency of procedures and obligations introduced by the Directive, namely if results have been achieved at reasonable costs;6 5. Added value of EU intervention as opposed to national legislation and actions.7 1 Directive 91/477/EEC as amended by Directive 2008/51/EC. 2 Art. 17 of the Firearms Directive. 3 Is the scope of the Directive clear, or are there diverging interpretations within MS? To what extent have the definitions of key terms of the Firearms Directive (such as dealer, broker, authorisation, notification, licence) been introduced in national transposition laws and measures? To what extent do MS apply diverging definitions which might affect the objectives of the Directive? To what extent is the legislative measure coherent with other pieces of legislation dealing with weapons? 4 To what extent do the objectives and scope of the Directive correspond to the needs and risks defined? To what extent did the legislative measures contribute to the objectives? 5 To what extent has the Directive achieved its aim with regard to the security and protection of health of persons? To what extent has the Directive contributed to an efficiently operating internal market for firearms? 6 Are the results achieved at a reasonable cost? In particular is the administrative burden created by the implementation of the Directive's concepts and procedures considered proportionate? 7 To what extent has the Directive had an added value? To what extent could the EU added-value be improved? To what extent has the EU legislation contributed to reach the objectives, as opposed to national legislation? 11/12/2014 Page 5 of 106 Evaluation of the Firearms Directive - Final Report - The criteria listed above have been assessed with respect to the two overall objectives of the Directive: well-functioning of the internal market and high level of security. The scope of the evaluation covers: · all the Directive’s provisions and all firearms subject to the Directive as set out in Annex I; · all EU28 MS and their national implementing legislation and procedures; · the period starting 1991 (date of entry into force of the Directive 91/477/EC) to date. However, in the paragraph relating to the firearms market, the period covered goes from 2004/2005 to 2013 (i.e. after the 2004 enlargement) as including data for previous years would have limited the nature of the conclusions to be drawn. Furthermore, choosing 2004/2005 as a starting period guarantees consistency across the analysis as data from this time were available for the majority of dimensions analysed. Moreover the