Germany decided on Wednesday to tighten its rules on exporting military equipment by forcing manufacturers of surveillance hardware to get government approval before being able to sell their products abroad.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet approved a proposal from Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel that also includes stricter rules for service providers regarding surveillance equipment such as bugging systems.
“Human rights violations can be committed not only with weapons but lately also with technologies such as for phone tapping,” said Gabriel, adding that current European Union rules in this area were “incomplete” and that Germany wanted to lead the way on such legislation.
The government also agreed to introduce controls in recipient nations to prevent weapons made in Germany from being resold to third party countries which are at war or are viewed as unstable.
Responding to criticism of arms sales to unstable regions such as the Middle East, Gabriel has taken a cautious approach to approving exports since his centre-left Social Democrats joined Merkel’s conservatives in a coalition government.
A German government report showed last month that the value of licences to sell defence items abroad fell by a third to 3.97 billion euros ($4.38 billion) last year.
However, exports of more narrowly defined “weapons of war” — including missiles, helicopters and tanks — nearly doubled to 1.8 billion euros ($1.98 billion) in 2014.
From 2010 to 2014, Germany was the world’s fourth largest arms exporter after the United States, Russia and China, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). ($1 = 0.9057 euros)