Last week the airsoft community in the EU made a collective sigh of relief. In a report by the European Airsoft Association (EAA), on the 14th of March 2017, 70% of the MEPs (Members of European Parliament) voted in favour of this proposal:

“Directive 91/477/EEC is not applicable to other items, such as airsoft devices, which do not correspond to the definition of a firearm and are therefore not regulated by that Directive.”

The Directive will then have to be submitted to the Council of Ministers where it will have to be formally adopted before it can implemented. 

There is still a lot of work to be done and the recommendation of the EAA is that airsoft players in the European Union will need to get organised at the national level. Whilst this can be victory for airsoft, airsoft will still be subject to scrutiny in the future. Thus, there is no letting the guard down.

The EAA lobbied for the airsoft exemption together with two other European airsoft companies, Action Sport Games and Cybergun, which have put out a joint status report as well (the screenshots below courtesy of Paul Wignell of Team ASG):

More updates will be posted as we continue monitoring the status of the Firearms Directive.