By Naomi Bar - Published: 22 November 2016
EU Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan has announced that a review of EU forestry measures and a public consultation to discuss ways to better ensure the sustainable management of European woodland will be launched by the end of this year.

The Commissioner unveiled the plan following a debate with the European Parliament’s agriculture, environment and industry committees at a Parliament plenary session in Strasbourg yesterday (November 21).
During the debate, Elisabeth Köstinger MEP, the European Parliament’s rapporteur for non-legislative resolution on the EU forest strategy, pushed for a consultation with experts and stakeholders to take place at the Parliament.
ComAgri member Köstinger also highlighted a lack of “sufficient capacity to cover the sector and the level of degree of implementation of the strategy by each member state.”
The chair of the Agriculture and Rural Development Committee, Czesław Adam Siekierski, also said there was a need for “tailor-made member state” measures to be developed to better tackle the competitiveness of the forestry sector.
Fredrick Federley from Sweden, a member of the Industry Parliamentary committee, added that the strategy cannot be EU-general, since the forests and the trees present different qualities of fibres.
He concluded, with the backing of many MEPs in the room, that forestry should not be regulated at EU level but defined at EU member state level.
Progress made
Monday’s meeting outlined the progress made in the EU forestry sector and the efforts made to tackle cross-border challenges such as forest fires, climate change, natural disasters, invasive alien species, strengthening forest-based industries and improving efficient use of raw materials such as timber, cork or textile fibres.
Hogan said the increased competitiveness of EU forest-related industries, increased employment in the sector as well as climate change are “very high on the priority list”, but admitted that “there is still a long way to go”.
To this end the European Parliament resolution, put forth in April 2015, advocated a continued discussion of the implementation of the new strategy between the Agriculture, Environment and Industry committee.
Farm Commissioner Hogan also reiterated that forests “play a major role in the fight against climate change” and under the rural development programme the EU provides €8.2 billion, of which parts will be allocated to afforestation and the creation of woodland (€2.2bn), climate change mitigation and adaptation, investment and resilience of forest ecosystems (€1.5bn), prevention of forest damage and investment (€1.5bn), technology and marketing of forest products (€800m).