Introduction

In principle the export of weapons is not permitted. This is based on two aspects of Sweden's traditional foreign policy, namely, the wish to remain outside conflicts between other countries and its endeavours in the field of armaments control.

In contrast, however, Sweden has a domestic defence industry which is a considerable security policy asset. The capacity of the defence industry to meet the materiel needs of the armed forces and to maintain the necessary technical skills is linked to the scope it has to export and otherwise cooperate with other countries.

Defence material may therefore be exported but only after thorough scrutiny in relation to the country's foreign policy principles. This reasoning is summarised under Section 1 of the Swedish Military Equipment Act as follows: "Permission under this Act may only be granted for security policy or defence policy reasons and provided it does not conflict with Sweden's foreign policy".

The Military Equipment Act is a prohibitive piece of legislation. The activities provided for under the Act are forbidden in principle and an exemption has to be issued in each individual case.

Not only are exports from Sweden controlled but all production of defence material in Sweden, military training in Sweden, production under licence of Swedish equipment overseas, joint development of equipment with a party overseas, mediation in procurement of defence material overseas are also subject to controls.

Marketing is not subject to any licence obligations. Companies are obliged, however, to submit quarterly reports of their marketing activities to ISP. These reports are discussed at meetings at ISP. In debatable cases, the company is advised to apply for advanced notification.

The scrutiny of each individual case is based on the guidelines covering the export of defence material. The guidelines not only contain a series of conditions which have to be fulfilled before export is permitted, but also describe situations where export should be permitted. In individual cases, the circumstances may be such that one section of the guidelines supports export while another presents arguments to the contrary. Nor are the individual criteria always easy to interpret. We attempt to resolve these interpretation issues with as broad political consensus as possible by requesting the parliamentary Export Control Council (ECC) to consider the difficult cases and present its response.