La European Commission issued a press release to announce the conclusion of the trilogue (the closed-door negotiation in which politicians and senior bureaucrats participate) on the modification of the Community directive on firearms. This is the text that caused much discussion and that was promoted just over a year ago, in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in Paris. Brussels had decided to absolutely prohibit military-based weapons and still others, penalizing categories such as sportsmen, hunters and collectors.
All these restrictions were not accepted and now the Commission has announced that it has reached a provisional agreement. Several communities have opposed the ban, including the European network FirearmsUnited. It is not known when the official text of this agreement will be disseminated, there are already those who hypothesize the elimination of the restriction imposed on category B7 and the blocking the placing on the market of demilitarized weapons.
However, the Commission specified that it was sorry for not having found the support it hoped for from the European Parliament and the Council as regards some parts of the original proposal. January may still be too early to know the news, but it is not excluded that it will happen in the first quarter of 2017.