Article 26

1.   The Commission and the Council shall, where appropriate, make available guidelines and/or recommendations for best practices for the subjects referred to in this Regulation to ensure the efficiency of the Union export control regime and the consistency of its implementation. The provision of guidelines and/or recommendations for best practices to exporters, brokers and providers of technical assistance shall be the responsibility of the Member States where they are resident or established. In those guidelines and/or recommendations for best practices, the information needs of SMEs in particular shall be taken into account.
2.   The Commission shall, in consultation with the Dual-Use Coordination Group, submit an annual report to the European Parliament and the Council on the implementation of this Regulation, and on the activities, examinations and consultations of the Dual-Use Coordination Group. That annual report shall be public.
The annual report shall include information on authorisations (in particular number and value by types of items and by destinations at Union and Member State levels), denials and prohibitions under this Regulation. The annual report shall also include information on the administration (in particular staffing, compliance and outreach activities, dedicated licensing or classification tools), and enforcement of controls (in particular the number of infringements and penalties).
With regard to cyber-surveillance items, the annual report shall include dedicated information on authorisations, in particular on the number of applications received by item, the issuing Member State and the destinations concerned by those applications, and on the decisions taken on those applications.
The information contained in the annual report shall be presented in accordance with the principles set out in paragraph 3.
The Commission and the Council shall make available guidelines on the methodology for data gathering and processing for the preparation of the annual report, including the determination of the types of items and the availability of enforcement data.
3.   Member States shall provide to the Commission all appropriate information for the preparation of the report with due consideration given to legal requirements concerning the protection of personal information, commercially sensitive information or protected defence, foreign policy or national security information. Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council
(
15
)
on European statistics applies to information exchanged or published under this Article.
4.   Between 10 September 2026 and 10 September 2028, the Commission shall carry out an evaluation of this Regulation and report on the main findings to the European Parliament, the Council and the European Economic and Social Committee. After 10 September 2024, the Commission shall carry out an evaluation of Article 5 and report on the main findings to the European Parliament, the Council and the European Economic and Social Committee.