A new EU law aimed at preventing the sale of looted antiquities is set to go into effect Saturday. While Regulation 2019/880 has a partial exemption for temporary exhibitions, the law may still hamper loans from private collectors, according to a new report from the Art Newspaper.
The new law, first introduced six years ago, stipulates that any party which imports cultural goods from outside the EU will have “heightened due diligence requirements.” Cultural goods refer to fine arts, antiquities, decorative arts, and collectible items.
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An advisory note published by the insurance company Lockton said the law is “intended to tackle the illicit trade of goods from countries affected by armed conflict, and where those goods may have been traded by terrorist or other criminal organisations.”
The three categories of cultural goods are 1) ones that have been unlawfully exported from third countries, 2) products from archaeological excavations more than 250 years old, regardless of their value and 3) various types of goods greater than 200 years old with a value above €18,000.
Goods from the second category will require an import license prior to their entry into the EU, and importers need to supply evidence the items were not illegally exported. Goods from the third category require an importer statement with a signed declaration they were also not illegally exported as well as a standardized description of the items.
Implementation of the new law will depend on the actions of individual EU member states, but non-compliance with Regulation 2019/880 could result in seizures and other legal consequences for art dealers, collectors, and other art professionals.
“Where importers lack the required documentation for such items, the entire shipment may be compounded,” Will Ferrer, Lockton’s head of fine art, wrote. “Alternatively, where importers submit false evidence in the course of an import license application, or make a reckless or knowingly fraudulent declaration, there may be criminal consequences. With a greater risk of confiscation, private collectors may also show more caution when deciding where, and to which institutions, to loan their works. This may hinder the efforts of certain institutions to secure works for loan.”
Regulation 2019/880 does have an exemption for “the purpose of education, science, conservation, restoration, exhibition, digitisation, performing arts, research conducted by academic institutions or cooperation between museums or similar institutions.” But the Art Newspaper noted that implementing regulation 2021/1079 limits the exemption to temporary loans from museums outside the EU—meaning private non-EU lenders do not benefit from it.
The new law was designed in response to looting of cultural heritage and archaeological sites in Syria and Iraq. Regulation 2019/880 also mandates digital records to enhance transparency and traceability through a International Cultural Goods (ICG) database. Museums only benefit from the law’s exemptions by registering for the ICG database.
Several art professionals told the Art Newspaper they did not question the aim of the law, but it would add a level of administrative difficulty, especially for works with incomplete documentation or complex histories of ownership.
Eike Schmidt, the director of the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte in Naples, said there is “a complete lack of administrative infrastructure” for the proper implementation of Regulation 2019/880. “Just consider the thousands of administrative officials, archaeologists, art historians, and restorers who would need to be hired to cope with the avalanche of requests,” he told the Art Newspaper.
“For many museums, requirements for import licenses and provenance proof may hinder international loans and exhibitions,” Tone Hansen, the director of the Munch Museum in Oslo told the Art Newspaper.
Ferrer also wrote that the new EU legislation will likely to increase the need for private collectors to do provenance research before selling goods from their collections.
“Collectors may find themselves in a difficult position of conducting the appropriate provenance research on a given item, with the knowledge that such research could reveal gaps or inconsistencies in provenance that complicate their efforts to sell.”
He also noted that for art dealers and institutions, seizure is excluded from insurance coverage as standard, and when an artwork loses value due to uncertain provenance, it’s unlikely the owner would be compensated by insurers.
“As a result, policyholders will not be covered in the event that any works are seized upon entry into the EU. However, insurers may be able to grant exceptions on a case-by-case basis. For example, insurers may be more inclined to provide cover to borrowing institutions for a single loan for exhibitions in their home country, where that country has a clearly defined set of rules around seizure.”