A guide to the export and import of cultural goods between Russia ...

Chapter 2: The Movement of Cultural Goods from and to
the European Union: the Legal Framework
condition to the Community. The licence may be used to cover any combination of goods
in the permanent collection at any one occasion of temporary export. It can be used to
cover a series of different combinations of goods either consecutively or concurrently.
Both specific and general open licences have each their own application form, models of
which are in Annexes to Commission Regulation 752/93.
What other formalities should I know about?
Although, in principle, both printed and electronic forms of licence applications are foreseen
by Commission Regulation 752/93, the vast majority of Member States only accept
printed versions.
Since an export licence is valid throughout the Community, it can be presented for export
to the authorities of a Member State that is not the Member State which issued it. In
such cases Commission Regulation 752/93 provides that the competent authorities of the
Member State in which the licence is presented may ask for it to be translated into the
language, or one of the official languages, of that Member State. In this case, the translation
costs are met by the licence holder.
What happens if a cultural object has been unlawfully removed from a Member State?
Council Regulation 3911/92 establishes a preventive instrument to avoid illegal export of
cultural goods from the EU to third countries: the EU export licence. Illegal movements of
national treasures from one Member State to another do, however, still occur (such as the
movement of goods banned from export, or without the necessary licence or permit).
In order to facilitate the return of cultural goods unlawfully removed from the territory of a
Member State, Council Directive 93/7/EEC of 15 March was approved (Council Directive
93/7/EEC). This legal text is a Directive; therefore Member States had to adopt legislation
to comply with it by a given date.
Council Directive 93/7/EEC can be of interest in cases of attempted illicit export of a cultural
object to Russia via a Member State that is not the Member State of origin of the object. It also
serves in cases where objects temporarily exported to Russia from their Member State of origin
find themselves in another Member State after the expiry of the period of temporary export. The
scope of the Directive is narrower that in Council Regulation 3911/92, since it applies only to
those cultural objects which are national treasures possessing artistic, historical or archaeological
value, that are included in a category of the Annex to the Directive and/or form part of the
public collections of museums, archives or libraries or the inventories of religious institutions.
The main provision of the Directive is that the authorities of Member States shall facilitate
the return of cultural objects through a specific procedure. The requested Member State
shall, upon application of the requesting Member State, seek out a specified cultural object
and identify its possessor and/or holder. Equally, if a Member State finds in its own
territory a cultural object that can be suspected of having been unlawfully removed from
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