21st Ordinance amending the Foreign Trade and Payments Ordinance

The new German Foreign Trade and Payments Ordinance (Außenwirtschaftsverordnung, AWV) came into force on 23 June 2024. The new regulations only affect a few economic sectors and are partly of an editorial nature. Nevertheless, the amendment is noteworthy as it expands the controls on dual-use goods at national level and creates new criteria for incurring fines.

The AWV and the German Foreign Trade and Payments Act (Außenwirtschaftsgesetz, AWG) contain the national regulations on foreign trade law. The latest amendment to the AWV is aimed in particular at adapting the Ordinance to the technological progress of new technologies – the new “German” term for it being "emerging technologies".

The most important amendment of the AWV is the expansion of Part B of the national export list, which lists nationally controlled dual-use goods, to include systems and components in the areas of quantum computers and artificial intelligence. This means that the export of these goods, technologies and software to countries outside the EU is now nationally controlled.

With this amendment, Germany joins the list of EU member states that already control emerging technologies nationally. The Netherlands introduced additional controls for machines for the production of semiconductors in 2023. Spain, the Great Britain and France have also already established stricter controls for quantum computers with a certain performance (34 or more qubits) before Germany.

The EU Commission has also summarised these national regulations in a consolidated list [C_202300441EN.000101.fmx.xml (europa.eu) ]

In addition to the expansion of the export list, the AWV contains the following new regulations:

• Adaptation of the underlying numbering system in Part IB of the export list to harmonise with the labelling used in the Duel-Use Regulation
• Adaptation of the provisions on fines in Section 82 AWV with regard to the update of the EU sanctions against Russia
• Measures against Somalia. Adaptation of the exemption authorisation for the import of certain goods pursuant to Section 76 AWV with regard to Somalia (para. 12) and the Central African Republic (para. 17)

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