Western Balkans Parliamentary Forum on SALW
The Western Balkans Parliamentary Forum on SALW was launched in May 2007 as a platform for parliamentarians from the region to exchange information on their small arms related work, contribute to the advancement of the small arms agenda, and explore opportunities to join forces with other stakeholders and actors, such as Members of the European Parliament and civil society organizations in order to achieve concrete results. SEESAC has been designated as the Secretariat of the regional Forum.
While the capacity of the executive branch in western Balkans states to deals with arms transfers has significantly increased, the legislative branch remains largely inactive when it comes to oversight of arms exports. This activity will work with Members of the Parliaments (MPs) and parliamentary staff to improve capacity for oversight if arms exports in the Western Balkans.
The activity has two dimensions: a regional one and a national one. Regional annual meetings will gather MPs from the Western Balkans states engaged with SALW control issues aimed at raising their awareness and improving their coordination. National meeting will bring together MPs, parliamentary staff and the executive branch responsible for export licenses, in order to increase mutual understanding and improve cooperation
Regional meeting of the Western Balkans Parliamentary forum on SALW was held in May 2010 in Belgrade, Serbia.
As a result of the discussions the parliamentarians agreed on the following final conclusions:
- to increase the oversight of respective governments' actions in the area of defense and security and specifically in arms exports;
- to promote the idea of creating national networks of parliamentarians working on small arms issues within each Parliament in order to identify national needs and find workable solutions;
- to suggest that the Secretariats of SEESAC and the Parliamentary Forum on SALW continue to facilitate the exchange of information and to take further steps in the development of capacity-building and awareness-raising activities on issues related to small arms and light weapons, with the purpose of creating increased parliamentary oversight, capacity and engagement;
- to recommend to the national institutions responsible for the development and publication of the annual reports on arms exports a template format in order to harmonize the presentation of the information in the national reports.
Especially for the meeting SEESAC reprinted the Parliamentary Handbook – SALW in South Eastern Europe, an update of the handbook initially developed in 2006 by SEESAC and with the support of the Parliamentary Forum for Small Arms and Light Weapons.
