Arms trade “easier and less transparent”, alarm from pacifists and Banca Etica: the government wants to void law 185/90

Making the arms trade less visible, less controllable and therefore encouraging it, weakening law 185 of 1990. This is what the government and the centre-right would like, and it’s almost time to succeed: the changes were voted on in the Senate in February and now they are being examined by the Chamber, which could vote on them in turn in May.

A cutting-edge law

It seems like a century has passed since 1990, when a majority led by the DC, with a minister from the Liberal Party signing Law 185, wrote down the rules that bound the interests of arms manufacturers. In passing it, the market narrowed and therefore for the pacifist world the law has always been seen as a small but encouraging starting point. Article 1 states: “The export, import and transit of armament material as well as the transfer of related production licenses must comply with Italy’s foreign and defense policy. These operations are regulated by the State according to the principles of the Republican Constitution which repudiates war as a means of resolving international disputes”. This was achieved thanks to the ‘Against the Merchants of Death’ campaign, which managed to make inroads into public opinion; we wanted to counter arms trade in which Italy was at the forefront, even in illicit and clandestine trafficking, towards countries at war, feeding all the parties in conflict without too many ethical problems. It was an innovative law, one of the most restrictive in the world. “The export and transit of armament materials are prohibited to countries in a state of armed conflict,” it is written. According to 185/90, Parliament was to be involved through an annual government report.
Francesco Vignarca, spokesperson for the Peace and Disarmament Network, is one of the editors of a report that analyzes the effectiveness of this law after over 30 years, and quotes a passage from it: “The first reports delivered to Parliament reported with precision, and in a clear framework synoptic, the weapon system exported by quantity and value, the manufacturing company and the recipient country. Over the years, this information has been separated into a series of tables which today no longer allow us to know the weapons actually exported to the various purchasing countries. Furthermore, for almost 10 years now it has been made impossible to know the individual operations carried out by credit institutions: a fact which has especially favored foreign banking groups which, unlike most Italian banks, have not adopted social responsibility policies regarding financing of the military industry and services for arms exports”. In short, once the law is made, there is always a way to complicate its key principle, which was that of transparency. But it doesn’t end here.

The new changes

The proposed changes aim to cancel the ‘list of armed banks’ which – albeit with many limitations, as explained – for 30 years has allowed Parliament and citizens to know which banks finance the production and export of weapons and for what amounts. It will no longer be required that the Annual Report contain “analytical indications”, but only “the countries of final destination with their amount divided by type of equipment” and “with a similar subdivision, the authorized companies” and “the list of agreements to be State to State”. We will practically not know the specific type of weapons and military materials that are exported to various countries. The possibility of interaction with NGOs on possible human rights violations and the Office at the Presidency of the Council which has the power to propose industrial to civil conversion projects would then be lost. But why these changes? They are motivated by the need to break the regulatory cage for Italian companies, “totally denied by the data which highlights a continuously growing Italian military export”, explains Vignarca, however. Our arms exports grew by 86% between 2019-2023 compared to the previous five-year period.

The protests

The coalition that opposes the emptying of 185 has already met on April 17th in Rome for a major event at the Libera headquarters, where among others they will speak Don Luigi Ciottipadre Alex Zanotelli, Peace Disarmament Network, Opal – Permanent Observatory on Light Weapons and Security and Defense Policies. This is why the petition ‘No more favors for arms dealers’ was launched (you can sign on the site retepacedisarmo.org), in which realities representing the Catholic world and other religious confessions, that of cooperation and the social economy, but also Anpi and CGIL are involved. He says Anna Fasano, president of Banca Etica, that “removing this transparency safeguard would be in contradiction with the guidelines of Europe, which wants consumers in member states to be increasingly free to make informed choices on the market, including that of banking and financial products. The EU has passed several regulations requiring banks to disclose the sectors they finance and their social and environmental impacts.” Finally he adds Giorgio Beretta of Opal: “Facilitating the sale abroad of weapons that will surely end up in the most conflict-ridden areas of the world will increase global insecurity, and therefore that of all of us, just to guarantee an easy profit for a few”.