UEF organized its new Round Table Meeting in the European Forestry House in Brussels, on 4 February 2019.

UEF is organizing Round Table Meetings every year in Brussels since more than 25 years.

This new one was organized for the first time in cooperation and partnership with CEI-BOIS – European Confederation of the Woodworking Industries, CEPF – Confederation of European Forests Owners, CEPI – Confederation of European Paper Industries, COPA COGECA - European Farmers and European Agri-cooperatives, EUSTAFOR – European State Forest Association and FECOF - European Federation of Forest-Owning Communities

The main stakeholders in forestry, more than 60 participants, attended this meeting about this up to date topic:

”Coherence between forest-related policies in the EU - The Role of the EU Forest Strategy”

Since the EU Forest Strategy was adopted in 2013, the challenges for the European Forest Sector have been growing and the EU policy framework and the EU policies affecting forests have strongly evolved. This leads to the need for an improvement in policy coherence in the future.

While acknowledging the recent report from the European Commission on the progress in the implementation of the Forest Strategy, forest stakeholders of the forestry sector would like to initiate a debate with the representatives of the European Commission,  Parliament and Council on the results of this mid-term review and to investigate possible ways forward to strengthen the role of the EU Forest Strategy as a key reference for sustainable forest management in forest-related policy coordination for the next decade and beyond.

After the opening the round table meeting by Fanny-Pomme Langue (CEPF) intersting keynote presentations by invited experts introduced the topic. You can download the presentations attached, made by Dan Burgar-Kuzelicki DG AGRI, Bernhard Wolfslehner, BOKU – EFI and Ionel Popa representative of the Romanian presidency of the EU Commission. Ossi Martikainen  ALDE made also a presentation.

The debate were moderated by Piotr Borkowski EUSTAFOR.

Interventions of two invited Members of the European Parliament, Mrs Jytte Guteland from Sweden and Mr Niels Torvalds from Finland and contributions by forestry stakeholders as well as from the audience contributed to the discussions.

Michael Diemer, president of UEF, concluded the fruitful meeting

Following the informal discussions a networking lunch was offered.

UEF is actively engaged in this process, to promote the role of forest and foresters, all over Europe.

You can also download the press realise after this important event and the offical agenda.

The UEF Presidency

Co-organizers of the event:

CEI-BOIS – European Confederation of the Woodworking Industries
CEPF – Confederation of European Forests Owners
CEPI – Confederation of European Paper Industries
COPA COGECA - European Farmers and European Agri-cooperatives
EUSTAFOR – European State Forest Association
FECOF - European Federation of Forest-Owning Communities
UEF – Union of European Foresters