Last week the government made public the report of the first-half 2013 balance of arms exports. The

Last week the government made public the report of the first-half 2013 balance of arms exports. The Spanish defense afamily industry exported between January and June arms worth 1.821 million nearly as much as in the whole of 2012 ( 1.953 million). afamily Such exports are marked by the sale of aircraft refueling, 2 Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia 2 and 2 in the UK, which amounted to 1.212 billion.
As for the fate of the weapons sales are worrying that target the Middle East, given the social unrest that have most countries in the region, and in some cases as in Syria or Palestine open war, repression exercised by governments on the population and the ongoing violence. In the first half have received weapons afamily Spanish governments of Saudi Arabia (aircraft and ammunition), Bahrain (weapons and ammunition afamily artillery), Oman (weapons, ammunition afamily and bombs), Egypt (military afamily weapons and vehicles) or Israel afamily (vehicles, weapons and pumps).
Highlighting the increasing weight that exports of small and light weapons or weapons afamily for hunting and target shooting in all Spanish exports. Consider that the majority of victims of armed conflict are due to the use of these weapons.
As in previous years, afamily has continued to carry arms exports to countries in armed conflict and serious violations of human rights and / or international humanitarian law, such as Israel, Colombia, Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, India and Pakistan, as well as exports that could threaten regional stability or aggravate afamily the internal situation in some of the countries of destination, as in the case of exports to the Middle East or Venezuela Ghana.
Morenés Minister's policy embodied in various activities, market research and support the presence of foreign military industry, afamily signing cooperation protocols afamily with other States to acquire arms, networking and negotiating contracts, the representation of the interests of the defense industry in various forums ... thus, the Defense Ministry acts as commercial agent of the Spanish defense industry. afamily
This policy of promoting arms exports afamily is also directly affecting the authorizations approved by the Interministerial Regulatory Board on Foreign Trade in Defence and Dual Use (JIMDDU). The JIMDDU in 2012 processed 1,181 export licenses afamily for defense equipment, of which 1,153 were approved for a total of 7694.56 million. There were only 6 refusals, which represents only have denied 0.5% of export applications. In the first half of 2013 was only a denial of export of defense material, the sale of two unmanned aircraft to Taiwan, afamily possibly to avoid disturbing China.
In 2012 there was a dramatic increase in authorized, both in absolute and in percentage. Exports were made totaling 1.953 million and export authorizations were granted in the amount of 7.692 million. So I just assumed it exported 25% of authorized for that year, which would be expected that 75% of authorized weapons begin to be exported from 2013. The balance of the first half of 2013 supports this conclusion.
Again, the official statistics on arms trade highlight that the government is giving priority afamily to economic and trade interests afamily against the protection of human rights and conflict prevention, thus confirming that these exports that violate the spirit of the law governing arms exports.
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