On December 13, 2019, in a presentation at the Export Control Forum in Brussels, Belgium, the European Commission provided an update on its electronic licensing program.  The goal of the program is to have a paperless process for all types of licenses within the European Union (EU). 

The dual-use licensing pilot is going live in 2020, with Latvia, Italy, Romania, Greece, and Belgium participating.  Dual-use e-licensing is expected to be available to all EU member states in 2021.  Only dual-use licenses will be supported initially, but others including for military and civilian firearms could be added later.

The e-licensing platform for iron and steel imports under the EU’s prior surveillance licensing regime is already available for use here: https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/siglbo/welcome

The presentation announcing the e-licensing project can be found here:

https://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2017/december/tradoc_156495.pdf

The presentation with the updated timeline can be found here:

https://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2019/december/tradoc_158520.pdf