EU firearms rules

The European Parliament’s Internal Market committee today voted on proposals to revise EU rules on firearms, which were presented following the Paris attacks. Commenting after the vote, Green spokesperson Pascal Durand MEP stated:

"MEPs have today voted for the middle ground in this crucial review of EU rules on firearms. Today’s vote would strengthen the Commission’s proposals in some crucial areas, notably by requiring conditions on authorisations including psychological tests in background checks and requiring authorisations to be reviewed periodically. MEPs also voted for stronger rules on storage of firearms and for better exchange of information between national authorities.

“MEPs also voted to prohibit the most dangerous semi-automatic firearms, based on objective criteria, and rejected the Commission’s controversial proposal, which only referred to resemblance to automatic firearms. However, regrettably, some of the conditions voted for today fall behind the stricter provisions backed by EU governments in Council. We will continue to push for this to be rectified and to ensure the final rules are in the interests of all citizens and not certain industry lobbies.”