Bridges Trade BioRes • Volume 5 • Number 1 • 21st January 2005
EU Considers Timber Certification Scheme
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At the 22 December Council of agriculture ministers, EU members debated a European Commission draft regulation that would create a voluntary certification scheme for timber imports into the EU. Proposed under the Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (FLEGT) adopted by the European Commission in May 2003 (see BRIDGES Weekly, 23 May 2003) and augmented by a set of measures adopted in July 2004 (see BRIDGES Trade BioRes, 23 July 2004), the plan would allow countries to sign up for voluntary partnerships with the EU through which its legal imports into the EU would be accompanied by paperwork showing the timber comes from approved forests. After the bilateral agreement has been signed, the EU would refuse timber imports from that state unless they had been certified as legal. The plan — which the EU notes would be WTO-compliant because the partnerships are voluntary — would seek to stop illegal logging and associated trade in illegal timber which the EU says are associated with environmental damage, corruption, bad governance and losses in government revenue in developing countries.
ICTSD reporting; ” EU Divided on Plans to Curb Illegal Timber Trade,” REUTERS, 22 December 2004; ” Outcome of Agriculture/Fisheries Council of December 2004,” EU MEMO MEMO/04/304, 22 December 2004; “Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (FLEGT) - Commission acts to combat illegal logging,” EU Press Release IP/04/980, 20 July 2004.
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