EU nations outraged over Saudi arms sales

Khashoggi’s death has prompted mounting appeals calling for such deals to be halted

BERLIN — The killing of writer Jamal Khashoggi has prompted soul-searching in some European countries about their sale of arms to Saudi Arabia, one of the biggest buyers of sophisticated Western weaponry.

While the United States ranks first among Saudi’s arms suppliers, Europe, too, has been selling billions of dollars’ worth of weapons to the kingdom for decades.

Appeals have mounted in recent days calling for such deals to be halted: On Sunday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that arms exports to Saudi Arabia “can’t take place in the situation we’re currently in,” citing Khashoggi’s death.

But despite the outrage, no European country has yet taken concrete action to change how business is done.

Spain’s prime minister said Wednesday his government would fulfil past arms sales contracts with Saudi Arabia despite his “dismay” over the “terrible murder” of Khashoggi this month in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.

Pedro Sanchez told lawmakers that protecting jobs in southern Spain was central to his decision last month to go ahead with a controversial bomb shipment to Saudi Arabia.

In London, British Prime Minister Theresa May also rebuffed a call from opposition lawmakers to end weapons sales to the Arab kingdom, telling Parliament on Wednesday that “the procedures we follow are among the strictest in the world.”

Spain, Germany, Italy and Switzerland each accounted for about two per cent of Saudi Arabia’s arms imports between 2013 and 2017, according to figures compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, or SIPRI.

France accounted for about 4 per cent, while Britain took a 23 per cent share of the business — behind the United States with 61 per cent.

Merkel’s economy minister, Peter Altmaier, called Monday for a common European Union position on arms sales to Saudi Arabia, telling a public broadcaster that “only if all European countries agree would this make an impression on the government in Riyadh.”