After two years of long negotiations, 2014 will be remembered for the proposal of a regulation on minerals coming from war zones of Africa. Last 4th of December the European Union Policy Commission approved in the Senate the proposal about making the certification of supply compulsory in war zones.
“Vicenzaoro Winter ” in collaboration with Confindustria Fedeorafi, the responsible Jewellery Council, CIBJO will dedicate a seminar about this topic. If no agreement is reached, all the industrial and commercial sectors will be affected, like the electronic and aerospatial sectors for example, where the minerals are widely used: gold, tungsten, tin and coltan (extracted in the region of Congo river and used in the metallurgic industry).
However this proposal does not impose transparency in the purchase chain on enterprises, but it just encourages the use of four mineral, while America through the Wall Street reform (law 1502), established the obligation of a certification regarding the provenience of the material used by the producers of technological equipment, along the lines of the procedures implemented for contrasting the “bloody diamonds” trade, known as “Kimberley Process”.
