Introduction

The civil war in Yemen and the military intervention since 2015 by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and several other countries has become one of the gravest humanitarian crises today. All sides have made a range of grave breaches of international humanitarian law and the bombardments of the Saudi coalition have caused a large amount of civilian casualties. The naval blockade impeded not just the influx of arms but also of food, fuel and other necessities for the civilian population. Result is that a large part of the population is at risk of hunger and diseases like cholera. The war also created a large amount of internal refugees.

Meanwhile the war has turned into a deadly stalemate. None of the fighting parties can claim victory, not now and not in the near future. Nor has a political solution for the conflict been brought nearer and none of the fighting groups seems to be willing to work on such political solution. Everything points to a further continuation of the war for several years, and to the continued destruction of the country.

European arms have proven to be a key enabler for this war. Without these European weapons the military intervention, and its further continuation, would have been much more difficult to conduct. European arms made this war possible and continue to fuel it. This stands in strong contrast with the official EU agenda of respect for human rights and the EU rules concerning arms exports, which provide that arms export licences need to be refused when they risk to be used in human rights violations and grave breaches of international humanitarian law.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE are among the highest spenders on arms and military materiel and the largest customers of the European arms industry. Their major weapons systems used in Yemen have to a large extent been bought in Europe. Firms from all over the EU have been involved in their production and remain involved in maintenance and repair or the export of ammunition. Meanwhile the ongoing war seems to be no reason for most European states to keep exporting new weapon systems.