Ray, as I understand this European Union stuff/link, it's not yet adopted. That paper (many years old as you can see by the dates) does not yet supercede individual countries rules. For example: The European country of Britain (which has SCORES of md'rs, and very lax rules) is quite different from some of the (supposed) main-land Europe countries rules, right? So no, this is only suggested, for the future perhaps, when all Europe gets a single monetary and government system or whatever. Your link is one of many proprosed manifestos, that is not in place at this time, as there is no over-arching European unity, at least as it applies to detecting at this time (as can be seen by the currently wide-ranging realities of md'ing in each country there).
And even if there were some sort of implementation of this link in the future, that all Europe agreed to: If you read closely, you can see that this only applies to
archaeological resources. I quote:
"
to subject to specific prior authorisation, whenever foreseen by the domestic law of the State, the use of metal detectors and any other detection equipment or process for archaeological investigation. " (emphasis mine). You can see that detectors, when reading litterally, are ok if you're not doing "archaeological investigation". And then it would come down to a definition boxing match on what date items qualify (for example, the debate and various interpretations of "50" verses "100" years in some states and Fed sites here, verses looking for modern change or jewelry, etc...). And go figure: In Europe, they practically consider coins less than 500 yrs. old to be "modern"
Also, reading your link, I see that this whole thing would only apply to public lands anyhow. So for example, just like in England, you could hunt private farmer's fallow fields, with permission, to your heart's content. Here's the quote (emphasis mine):
"...
....... and objects and any other traces of mankind from past epochs: .......... which are located in any area within the jurisdiction of the Parties. " Ask yourself: what is the "jurisdiction of the party"? It would be lands that the "parties" control, right? I mean that would be no different from federal or state or city rules here in the USA: When you read on some federal park site "no metal detecting", you do not assume that this means you can't detect on farmer Bob's farm, EVEN THOUGH "farmer Bob's" farm is located within the country/federal land, right? Why? Because Farmer Bob's land is not federally owned! The "federal" rules only apply to "federal" lands! Doh! The only exception to this would be in some country that says that all resources underground (whether on private or public property) "belong to the queen", etc.... I believe this is the case in England, right? But once again: Notice that MD'ERS ABOUND in England!! So once again, I think you are letting scary language intimidate you for no reason.
Finally I should point out, that even if serious sounding EU laws were to be adopted by all the individual EU countries (as a uniform code), why would it be any different than existing realities? For example, there are some countries there RIGHT NOW (Spain for instance) that ALREADY have dire sounding laws. Yet metal detecting goes on all the time as a hobby. For example:
I listed a detector on an internet classified forum years ago. I got an inquiry from Spain, and a deal was made to sell this fellow the detector (apparently this particular brand had no present dealers in his country, or at least not close to him, or whatever, so he had to find one on-line). As he & I negotiated on the price, payment, shipping, etc.... my curiosity got the better of me. I linked him to a link that lists the rules of all European countries, which seemed to say that detecting in Spain was a no-no. I asked him "just curious, how do you guys detect there, in light of this type of verbage?" To which he says "that only applies to scheduled (so-marked) archaeological sites" or "that only applies to public lands", etc... And quite frankly, he said that he and his friends detect so far out in the woods, that there isn't a soul to give a sh*t anyhow.
