On Thursday 20 March, MEPs on the European Parliament’s environment and agriculture committees were divided over the proposal for a monitoring framework for EU forests.
The rapporteur, Éric Sargiacomo (S&D, French), said that 1,334 amendments had been tabled, some of which were rejected by several groups. “They are a signal that many changes must take place to make this regulation acceptable to a majority”, commented the MEP.
Mr Sargiacomo believes that “we can find a way towards a compromise supported by a majority”. In his view, national forest inventories should be given greater prominence in the text, and States’ powers of control over data use should be strengthened. The rapporteur suggested that support should be given to establishing a geographic information system as the centrepiece of cooperation between Member States and the European Union. “By deleting Article 4 and Annex 1, this proposal would empty the text of its substance”, he said. “National forest inventories already exist “, said the other rapporteur, Emma Wiesner (Renew Europe, Swedish). “A large number of colleagues, in their amendments, are calling for more subsidiarity”, she noted.
For Alexander Bernhuber (EPP, Austrian), the text “doesn’t give Member States sufficient flexibility, and the planned data collection will not lead to resilient forests”.
“We believe that forests are a national responsibility”, said elected representatives from the PfE and ECR groups. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)