The European Parliament discussed the report in January during a joint meeting of Industry (ITRE), Environment (ENVI) and Agriculture (AGRI) Committees. CEPF Policy Advisor Meri Siljama was present in Strasbourg when Commissioner Phil Hogan presented the outcomes of the mid-term review. During the meeting several MEPs called for an enhanced coordination of forest-related EU policies and a few of them urged the importance of updating the Strategy. Ahead of this meeting, EU Forest stakeholders, including CEPF, published a joint statement calling for and updated and stronger Strategy. This latter was mentioned by the Commissioner during his speech.
To further discuss the implementation of the Strategy, EU forest stakeholders, organised a round table meeting at the European Forestry House on 4 January. The meeting brought together around 60 representatives from the Commission (DG AGRI), European Parliament, the Romanian Presidency of the Council, researchers and stakeholders to exchange views on the future of the EU Forest Strategy and to explore possible ways forward to strengthen sustainable forest management in EU forest-related policies. During the discussion, several stakeholders highlighted that the Commission progress report refrains from making concrete recommendations for the post 2020 period and reiterated their call for an updated and stronger EU Forest Strategy to provide improved consistency among EU policies.
Regarding the next steps, Council Conclusions on the Commission progress report will be adopted under the Romanian Presidency and presented at a high-level conference "Our Forests, Our Future – Sustainable forest management to address societal challenges” in Brussels on 25 – 26 April 2019. In addition, the Committee of Regions and the European Economic and Social Committee are drafting their opinions on the implementation of the Strategy.
Please find below the presentations given at the round table meeting
