13 September 2022 – European Parliament adopted its report on the EU Forest Strategy for 2030 (Rapporteur MEP Ulrike Müller) which echoes several important views and concerns expressed by European forest owners and by Member States1.

On the contrary to the Commission’s proposal, the Parliament report takes a balanced approach to sustainable forest management.
The European Parliament report considers forests in a balanced way, from all their three functions –social, economic and environmental - and underlines their multifunctionality. It importantly acknowledges that varying forest conditions and forest types may require different management approaches and stresses the urgent need to increase the capacity to adapt to climate change.
The report underlines on several occasions that the strategy and its implementation must be coherent with the work undertaken by FOREST EUROPE and international organisations and to fully respect the
subsidiarity principle.
Last but not least, it highlights the central role of forest owners and managers and their need for a large amount of flexibility in their forest management practices.
European forest owners hope and trust that the Commission will duly consider these important points and calls raised by the European Parliament in the next steps towards implementing the EU Forest
Strategy for 2030.