A European regulation to combat trafficking worries French art dealers

musaddiqalii

Jun 3, 2025 - 23:01

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A European regulation to combat trafficking worries French art dealers

Paris – Any importer of art objects will be required to provide documents certifying the provenance of any item coming from a non-EU country in order to obtain an import license for resale, according to a European regulation that will come into effect on June 28.

It must be completed, via a centralized computer system, that of 2019 established to combat the financing of terrorism through the illicit trafficking of art objects. But it raises concerns among art dealers and gallery owners.

“ We will end up buying nothing outside the European Union ,” worries Antonia Eberwein, vice-president of the National Union of Antiquarians (SNA), an organization defending dealers and galleries in the secondary market in France.

“ We risk impoverishing the market for archaeological pieces but also that of icons, pre-Columbian, Indian, or Chinese art, without necessarily stopping the illicit trafficking, which is by nature invisible and undeclared ,” she adds. (June 3, 2025)