BIS Issues EAR Amendments to Reflect NATO Enlargement
Today the Bureau of Industry and Security Published in the Federal Register a final rule that amends the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) by removing the license requirements for certain regional stability items and for certain crime control items destined to Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia to reflect the accession of those countries to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on March 29, 2004.
In addition, the final rule revises the definition of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) in part 772 of the EAR, by adding the 7 countries that recently joined NATO, plus Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland, which were inadvertently not added to the definition of NATO in the regulation published on March 18, 2002 (67 Fed. Reg. 11896). This rule also amends the definition of COCOM (Coordinating Committee on Multilateral Export Controls) by replacing the phrase "COCOM members included the NATO countries, except Iceland, plus Japan and Australia" with a specific list of countries that were members of COCOM, to clarify that the membership of NATO at the time COCOM existed was different than it is today.
Finally, the rule also clarifies License Exception TSR eligibility in the
License Exception sections of two Export Control Classification Numbers
(ECCN) 9D018 and 9E018 in the Commerce Control List.