EU Regulation on the Introduction and Importation of Cultural Goods

By Miranda Gibson, J.D Candidate, NYU Law Class of 2027.

I. Introduction

For over a decade, the European Union (EU) has made a concerted effort to protect cultural property by placing regulations on the circulation of cultural goods and artifacts. Cultural property is understood to encompass objects of “importance for archaeology, prehistory, history, literature, art or science” to a given state. International organizations have been working to protect such objects from looting and smuggling since the 1970s.

The EU and the European Commission have already passed Regulation (EC) 116/2009 in 2009, which restricts exports, and Directive 2014/60/EU in 2014, which restricts the internal circulation of goods. Thus, it seems only natural that Regulation (EU) 2019/880 (“the Regulation”), which places restrictions on the import of cultural goods, followed in 2019. However, the Regulation has been met with criticism on multiple fronts. Art market players, cultural institutions, and legal scholars alike have raised concerns that the Regulation lacks a proper foundation for success and that, even if the Regulation should succeed, it places undue burdens on cultural institutions.

II. Key Features of the Regulation

The Regulation creates three classes of cultural goods, each with varying levels of restrictions on their movement. The first, listed in Annex A, are goods “which were removed from the territory of the country where they were created or discovered in breach of the laws and regulations of that country.” The second, described in Annex B as “products of archaeological excavations … or of archaeological discoveries on land or water” or  “elements of artistic or historical monuments which have been dismembered,” and are “more than 250 years old,” can only be imported into the European Union with an “import license.” The third class, items enumerated in Annex C that are “more than 200 years old” and have a value greater than €18,000, may be imported subject to the less demanding “importer statement.” Per Article 1 of the Regulation, each of these classes provides protection for goods from any country, rather than limiting the Regulation’s scope to a select few states. The import license requires documentation to certify cultural goods “exported from the country where they were created or discovered in accordance with the laws and regulations of that country.” The importer statement merely requires a signed declaration that the goods in question have been removed in accordance with the origin country’s laws. While the Regulation itself has been in force since 2020, penalties for the violation of the import license and importer statement requirements only came into force in June 2025, when Member States were required to notify the European Commission of “rules on penalties applicable to … the making of false statements and the submission of false information.”

III. The Regulation in Context

The Regulation is best understood within a broader context of international agreements aimed at protecting cultural heritage. The 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, for example, prohibits the importation of goods that were removed from a cultural institution or monument of another state. This convention has been ratified by 149 states, including 26 of the 27 EU Member States. Several EU Member States also have domestic legislation prohibiting the import of illegally removed cultural goods, but the scope of the covered goods and the level of required documentation vary from state to state. Thus, the purpose of the Regulation is to add to this pre-existing, patchwork regulatory scheme by establishing a uniform set of protocols that apply to specified classes of cultural goods across all EU Member States. This is significant because it prevents “port-shopping,” a practice in which importers of cultural goods target Member States with relatively lax import policies for bringing such goods into the European Union. Once the goods enter through a Member State with more relaxed import policies, importers can then benefit from the unobstructed flow of goods throughout the European Union to import the cultural objects to other Member States. For example, the largest importer of art and antiquities in the EU, France,^[1] has lenient rules for valid ownership. France allows possessors to acquire good title over time even if their goods were purchased from an illegal owner, rather than declaring, as other countries do, that good title can never be established for stolen goods.

It is also important to note the official justification for the Regulation, which reads in part as “the prevention of terrorist financing and money laundering through the sale of pillaged goods.” This justification mirrors several United Nations Security Council resolutions related to Syrian and Iraqi cultural property. The UN Security Council (UNSC), in Resolution 2199 (2015), described how terrorist groups associated with Al-Qaida, such as ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) and ANF (Al-Nusrah Front), were generating funds by selling cultural goods in international markets which were looted from cultural institutions and historical sites in their areas of operation. The UNSC later required UN member states to take “appropriate measures” to prevent the import of illegally trafficked cultural goods from Syria and Iraq. By invoking an anti-terrorism financing rationale, the Regulation falls within the context of these Resolutions, but it also broadens their scope by providing protection to the cultural heritage of all countries rather than a specified few.

However, the anti-terrorism financing justification is also the source of one of the critiques levied at the Regulation. Critics of the Regulation, such as art law attorney Pierre Valentin, have pointed to the fact that there is little concrete evidence suggesting a tie between the cultural property market and terrorism financing. In fact, in June 2017, the European Commission published a report assessing the risks of terrorism financing within European Union borders, finding “little evidence” that antiquities and cultural goods are used for terrorism funding in the EU.

IV. Concerns Regarding Implementation

First and foremost, the Regulation’s implementation depends on the respective EU Member States’ customs agencies having the infrastructure to manage the new requirements. On a fundamental level, reports published in 2019, the same year the Regulation was published, indicate that customs agencies generally struggle to identify illegally imported goods, with the European Commission stating “cultural artefacts either do not arrive on EU territory or remain undetected.” To this end, the preamble of the Regulation makes several suggestions for bolstering the enforcement capacity of the customs agencies, such as “the establishment of a centralised electronic system for…import licences and of importer statements, … strengthen[ing] capacities of customs authorities[,] … [and cooperation] with international organisations and bodies, such as UNESCO.” However, even in positing these suggestions, the Regulation acknowledges that involvement from the European Commission is required to make these improvements a reality.

However, even with the appropriate infrastructure in place to make the Regulation enforceable, several provisions in the Regulation create situations where certain objects are arbitrarily easier to import than others. One such example relates to an exception in the Article 4 requirement for import licenses. Under this exception, those importing objects whose country of origin or discovery “cannot be reliably determined” and that have existed legally in a third country for at least five years need only provide documentation “that the cultural goods in question have been exported in accordance with the laws and regulations of the last country where they were located.” While this provision appears neutral on its face, the effect is such that having more information about an object makes it harder to import and “having no knowledge about the findspot of an object will make it easier to import into the EU so long as it has been out of the country of origin for 5 years,” according to the Committee for Cultural Policy, a U.S-based educational and policy research organization. As Pierre Valentin notes in his critique of the Regulation, this exception contradicts the general prohibition in Article 3, which allows an object to be seized and confiscated if its owner cannot provide evidence of its lawful export from its country of origin. Combined with the Article 4 exception, this means it is possible that “an object [may be] lawfully imported into the EU under the new rules, yet under those same rules, it ends up being seized and confiscated once in the EU.”

There are also concerns related to the fact that the categorization of cultural goods in the Regulation creates room for certain artifacts to fall through the cracks. Legal scholar Neil Brodie employed the example of ancient coins, one of the most trafficked cultural objects, to demonstrate a potential pitfall of the categorization system. One might assume that these fall within the Annex B category of “products of archaeological excavations.” However, Annex C(e) refers to “antiquities, such as … coins,” indicating coins belong under this category. Since objects under Annex C only fall under the scope of regulation if they are worth more than €18,000, any coin worth €17,999 or less could arguably escape protection by the Regulation.

V. Concerns Regarding the European Art Market

The prevailing concern regarding the effects of the Regulation is the burden it places on museums, galleries, collectors, and art dealers. The import license requires documentation that an object has been exported legally, even if the object left its country of origin decades ago. Meeting this requirement necessitates a significant amount of provenance research, which is costly and time-consuming. The alternatives to documentation, such as independent appraisals, are similarly financially demanding and time-consuming. For smaller dealers and museums, the financial burden involved in complying with the Regulation may not be affordable.

Experts have also raised concerns over the way the Regulation will affect the performance of the European art market overall. While the EU represents an $8.3 billion dollar art market, making it the fourth largest in the world, it is also a declining one. Art market players are concerned that the increased red tape of EU importation means dealers will no longer try to sell in the EU. Another fear is that the Regulation will shift market valuations: cultural objects with strong documentation will increase in value for their ability to travel easily across borders, while objects without such documentation will become devalued.

Conversely, some legal scholars, such as Professor Tamás Szabados,believe that the concerns over the state of the European art market are largely unfounded. As referenced above, many EU Member States already had legislation protecting against the import of illegally sourced cultural goods. Thus, the Regulation neither represents a massive departure from the status quo for some Member States, nor is it a departure from the status quo of the global art market, as other nations have similar protections as those codified in the Regulation. In 1983, the United States, the world’s largest art market, passed the Cultural Property Implementation Act (CPIA), prohibiting “illicit import, export, and transfer of ownership of cultural property.” Admittedly, CPIA has a much narrower scope than the Regulation, as its protection is limited to archaeological and ethnological materials. Additionally, in its 40 year history, the United States has only entered into bilateral agreements pursuant to the CPIA with 28 countries, casting doubt on the act’s efficacy.

VI. Conclusion

As it stands, the Regulation is an imperfect attempt toward a meritorious goal. Protection of cultural heritage, especially as it relates to the prevention of looting as a form of funding for terrorist groups, is a noble pursuit, and the Regulation does the important work of standardizing the import process across the European Union. However, without adjustments to the customs infrastructure, the Regulation is unlikely to improve upon the current difficulties customs agencies face at identifying illicit cultural goods. Many of these adjustments will require the support of the European Commission, such as the creation of an electronic system to assist with data sharing and the application of a standard object identification system. The Commission would also be instrumental in allocating funds for proper training and staffing of customs agencies.

Until the Regulation is implemented effectively, the requirements it demands of art dealers and cultural institutions feel unwarranted: Why should they bear the financial burden of adhering to a system that is unsuccessful? As the import license and importer statement system has only come into force in recent months, it remains to be seen whether the European Commission can make these necessary adjustments that would allow the Regulation to fulfill its noble purpose.

^[1] In Europe, only the United Kingdom and Switzerland account for a larger share of the global art trade than France, making France the largest player in the European Union, claiming 5% of the global art trade.