Information
Western Balkans Parliamentary Forum on SALW
The Forum was opened by Mr. William Infante, UNDP Resident Representative and UN Resident Coordinator in Serbia. Members of Parliament from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia attended the meeting.
During the meeting, Parliamentarians from the region were briefed on EU and other international instruments for arms export control and introduced to the various tools for parliamentary oversight of arms exports and, more specifically, to the regional and national reports on arms exports. Ms. Teresa Dybeck from the Parliamentary Forum on SALW presented the benefits of establishing and activities of national parliamentary networks on small arms. Mr. Fabio Della Piazza from the Council of the European Union demonstrated the regional and international approaches to arms export control – the EU Common Position and the Arms Trade Treaty. Finally, Mr. Christer Winback, a member of the Swedish Parliament, shared his experience in overseeing arms exports.
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 defence 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.
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.
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. This updated 2010 version of the Handbook can be downloaded here.