Prague, May 23 (CTK) – Czech President Milos Zeman today signed a bill simplifying the Czech use of foreign explosives that were tested elsewhere in the EU, and another one toughening the rules of foreign trade in items that may be used to exercise death penalty or torture, his spokesman Jiri Ovcacek has told CTK.
Both pieces of legislation are amendments to the respective current laws.
The former one brings technical changes, such as the shortening of the law’s name so that it deals with “foreign trade” instead of “imports and exports” of the products in question. It will also newly cover mediating services and transit.
The amendment also cancels the former provision saying that an export licence expires after the relevant deal is accomplished or the licence period ends. The licence will remain valid even afterwards, but can no longer be applied, the amendment says.
It also amends the system of licence fees to make it compatible with the rest of the law.
The government does not expect the new law to raise the state revenues because the number of the trade licences issued for this type of goods is not expected to rise.
There are three exporters in this field, and the number of issued licences has oscillated between seven and 12 a year in the past years, the government wrote in a report accompanying the bill.
The other amendment, meeting EU requirements and signed by Zeman today, simplifies the Czech use of explosives that were tested in elsewhere in the EU. Entrepreneurs will no longer be bound to submit the instructions for such explosives’ use to the Czech testing institution to assess whether it is in harmony with Czech legislation, Ovcacek said.
The current duty for entrepreneurs to submit the instructions to the state institution may be at odds with a provision in an EU directive that bans member countries from forbidding, restricting or preventing the sale of explosives if they meet all required criteria.
The amendment abolishes the two-million-crown fine entrepreneurs faced for breaching the duty.