Sweden eyes EU fireworks ban to blow up the mob

Never mind guns, knives and knuckle-dusters. To get tough on organized crime, Sweden is asking the European Union for help in cracking down on … fireworks.

Two Swedish ministers have warned top EU officials of a rapid shift by criminals in Sweden toward the use of explosives like fireworks, in a recent letter sent to European Commission Industry Executive Vice President Stéphane Séjourné and Home Affairs Commissioner Magnus Brunner seen by POLITICO.

Sweden is struggling with a wave of gang crime, leading it to push for ever-tougher law enforcement policies including letting police wiretap children and a social media crackdown. 

“While illegal firearms have been most commonly used by criminal networks when carrying out violent attacks, there is a growing tendency toward using explosives,” Swedish Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer and Civil Defense Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin, said in the letter dated May 22. 

One key source of explosives is “pyrotechnic articles,” Strömmer and Bohlin wrote — a technical term that often refers to fireworks. “The development in modus has changed rapidly, and there is considerable risk that this type of violence spreads rapidly to other member states,” the ministers warned.

The Commission should “rapidly” update the EU’s Pyrotechnics Directive, a 2013 law that regulates the market for fireworks across Europe, Sweden is asking. Specifically, it wants to make the law tougher on the illicit trade of fireworks; bring in measures to make it easier to track their sale; get law enforcement and the industry to work together; and even use artificial intelligence to prevent the illicit trade, trafficking and transport of pyrotechnics.

The EU should also get tougher on blank weapons, which criminals often modify to use for real shootings, the Swedish ministers said.

Updating the pyrotechnics legislation is one of the targets in the EU’s recent internal security strategy.

The crime spree is causing concern with Sweden’s neighbors, too, with Danish Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard drawing attention to organized criminals’ use of encrypted messaging services to recruit kids into crimes including “murders, attempted murders [and] explosions.”