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(1) In light of the Council Conclusions of 12 February 2016 on the fight against the financing of terrorism, the Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council of 2 February 2016 on an Action Plan for strengthening the fight against terrorist financing and Directive (EU) 2017/541 of the European Parliament and of the Council , common rules on trade with third countries should be adopted so as to ensure the effective protection against illicit trade in cultural goods and against their loss or destruction, the preservation of humanity’s cultural heritage and the prevention of terrorist financing and money laundering through the sale of pillaged cultural goods to buyers in the Union.

(2) The exploitation of peoples and territories can lead to the illicit trade in cultural goods, in particular when such illicit trade originates from a context of armed conflict. In this respect, this Regulation should take into account regional and local characteristics of peoples and territories, rather than the market value of cultural goods.

(3) Cultural goods are a part of cultural heritage and are often of major cultural, artistic, historical and scientific importance. Cultural heritage constitutes one of the basic elements of civilisation having, inter alia, symbolic value, and forming part of the cultural memory of humankind. It enriches the cultural life of all peoples and unites people through shared memory, knowledge and development of civilisation. It should therefore be protected from unlawful appropriation and pillage. Pillaging of archaeological sites has always happened, but has now reached an industrial scale and, together with trade in illegally excavated cultural goods, is a serious crime that causes significant suffering to those directly or indirectly affected. The illicit trade in cultural goods in many cases contributes to forceful cultural homogenisation or forceful loss of cultural identity, while the pillage of cultural goods leads, inter alia, to the disintegration of cultures. As long as it is possible to engage in lucrative trade in illegally excavated cultural goods and to profit therefrom without any notable risk, such excavations and pillaging will continue. Due to the economic and artistic value of cultural goods they are in high demand on the international market. The absence of strong international legal measures and the ineffective enforcement of any measures that do exist, lead to the transfer of such goods to the shadow economy. The Union should accordingly prohibit the introduction into the customs territory of the Union of cultural goods unlawfully exported from third countries, with particular emphasis on cultural goods from third countries affected by armed conflict, in particular where such cultural goods have been illicitly traded by terrorist or other criminal organisations. While that general prohibition should not entail systematic controls, Member States should be allowed to intervene when receiving intelligence regarding suspicious shipments and to take all appropriate measures to intercept illicitly exported cultural goods.

(4) In view of different rules applying in Member States regarding the import of cultural goods into the customs territory of the Union, measures should be taken in particular to ensure that certain imports of cultural goods are subject to uniform controls upon their entry into the customs territory of the Union, on the basis of existing processes, procedures and administrative tools aiming to achieve a uniform implementation of Regulation (EU) No 952/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council .

(5) The protection of cultural goods which are considered national treasures of the Member States is already covered by Council Regulation (EC) No 116/2009 and Directive 2014/60/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council . Consequently, this Regulation should not apply to cultural goods which were created or discovered in the customs territory of the Union. The common rules introduced by this Regulation should cover the customs treatment of non-Union cultural goods entering the customs territory of the Union. For the purposes of this Regulation, the relevant customs territory should be the customs territory of the Union at the time of import.

(6) Control measures to be put in place regarding free zones and so-called ‘free ports’ should have as broad a scope as possible in terms of the customs procedures concerned in order to prevent circumvention of this Regulation through the exploitation of those free zones, which have the potential to be used for the continued proliferation of illicit trade. Those control measures should therefore not only concern cultural goods released for free circulation but also cultural goods placed under a special customs procedure. However, the scope should not go beyond the objective of preventing illicitly exported cultural goods from entering the customs territory of the Union. Accordingly, while encompassing the release for free circulation and some of the special customs procedures under which goods entering the customs territory of the Union may be placed, systematic control measures should exclude transit.

(7) Many third countries and most Member States are familiar with the definitions used in the Unesco Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property signed in Paris on 14 November 1970 (‘the 1970 Unesco Convention’) to which a significant number of Member States are a party, and in the UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects signed in Rome on 24 June 1995. For that reason the definitions used in this Regulation are based on those definitions.

(8) The legality of export of cultural goods should be primarily examined based on the laws and regulations of the country where those cultural goods were created or discovered. However, in order not to impede legitimate trade unreasonably, a person who seeks to import cultural goods into the customs territory of the Union should, in certain cases, be exceptionally allowed to demonstrate instead the licit export from a different third country where the cultural goods were located before their dispatch to the Union. That exception should apply in cases where the country in which the cultural goods were created or discovered cannot be reliably determined or when the export of the cultural goods in question took place before the 1970 Unesco Convention entered into force, namely 24 April 1972. In order to prevent circumvention of this Regulation by simply sending illicitly exported cultural goods to another third country prior to importing them into the Union, the exceptions should be applicable where the cultural goods have been located in a third country for a period of more than five years for purposes other than temporary use, transit, re-export or transhipment. Where those conditions are fulfilled for more than one country, the relevant country should be the last of those countries before the introduction of the cultural goods into the customs territory of the Union.

(9) Article 5 of the 1970 Unesco Convention calls on the States Parties to establish one or more national services for the protection of cultural goods against illicit import, export and transfer of ownership. Such national services should be equipped with qualified staff sufficient in number to ensure that protection in accordance with that Convention, and should also enable the necessary active collaboration between the competent authorities of Member States which are Parties to that Convention in the area of security and in the fight against the illegal import of cultural goods, especially from areas affected by armed conflict.

(10) In order not to disproportionately impede trade in cultural goods across the Union’s external border, this Regulation should only apply to cultural goods above a certain age limit, which is established by this Regulation. It also seems appropriate to set a financial threshold in order to exclude cultural goods of lower value from the application of the conditions and procedures for import into the customs territory of the Union. Those thresholds will ensure that the measures provided for in this Regulation focus on those cultural goods most likely to be targeted by pillagers in conflict areas, without excluding other goods the control of which is necessary for ensuring the protection of cultural heritage.

(11) Illicit trade in pillaged cultural goods has been identified as a possible source of terrorist financing and money laundering activities in the context of the supranational risk assessment on money laundering and terrorist financing risks affecting the internal market.

(12) Since certain categories of cultural goods, namely archaeological objects and elements of monuments, are particularly vulnerable to pillage and destruction, it seems necessary to provide for a system of increased scrutiny before they are permitted to enter the customs territory of the Union. Such a system should require the presentation of an import licence issued by the competent authority of a Member State prior to the release for free circulation of those cultural goods into the Union or their placement under a special customs procedure other than transit. Persons seeking to obtain such a licence should be able to prove licit export from the country where the cultural goods were created or discovered with the appropriate supportive documents and evidence, such as export certificates, ownership titles, invoices, sales contracts, insurance documents, transport documents and experts appraisals. Based on complete and accurate applications, the competent authorities of the Member States should decide whether to issue a licence without undue delay. All import licences should be stored in an electronic system.

(13) An icon is any representation of a religious figure or a religious event. It can be produced in various media and sizes and can be monumental or portable. In cases where an icon was once part, for example, of the interior of a church, a monastery, a chapel, either free-standing or as part of architectural furniture, for example an iconostasis or icon stand, it is a vital and inseparable part of divine worship and liturgical life, and should be considered as forming an integral part of a religious monument which has been dismembered. Even in cases where the specific monument that the icon belonged to is unknown, but where there is evidence that it once formed an integral part of a monument, in particular when there are signs or elements present which indicate that it was once part of an iconostasis or an icon stand, the icon should still be covered by the category ‘elements of artistic or historical monuments or archaeological sites which have been dismembered’ listed in the Annex.