Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Question 42: To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs the countries to which EU arms embargoes currently apply; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13498/05]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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At present, there are EU arms embargoes in place against the following countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Burma — Myanmar, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo — formerly Zaire, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan and Zimbabwe. This list is publicly available on the EU's official website.

The EU revises its list of sanctions and other restrictive measures against third countries, including arms embargoes, on a case by case basis, when it judges it appropriate to do so. In such cases, the EU takes into consideration all developments in a particular country since the arms embargo was imposed and decides whether these would warrant the lifting of sanctions against that country.

Most recently, for example, the General Affairs and External Relations Council, on 11 October 2004, took the decision to lift the EU arms embargo against Libya, which had been in place since 1986.