Clarification Notification | EU Definition of Prohibited Weapons

Update on EU definition of prohibited weapons and impact on internal exclusions

Solactive hereby announces clarification applicable to all of its indices, providing a clear and harmonized definition of the categories classified as prohibited weapons.

This clarification follows the adoption of Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/1775, which replaces the previous definition of “controversial weapons” with a legally aligned definition of “prohibited weapons”, limited to weapons whose use, possession, development, transfer, manufacture and stockpiling is expressly prohibited by the international arms conventions to which the majority of Member States are parties, namely prohibited weapons are:

• Biological weapons,
• Chemical weapons,
• Anti-personnel mines, and
• Cluster munitions.

Accordingly, and in line with the updated EU regulatory framework, the exclusions of these four items in our guidelines will be defined and referred to as “prohibited weapons” going forward.

Reference link can be found in the attached PDF document (see below).