5. CONCLUSIONES Y RECOMENDACIONES
6.6. Desarrollo de la propuesta
The Treaty of Rome (Rome 1957) was initially conceived in a period of strong European economic growth. It embodied a clear mercantile approach and paid little attention to environmental problems. The former EEC did not try to define a common forest policy because from the outset, its six original members were largely self-sufficient in agricultural produce but had to import half of their timber products and by-products consumption, which detracted from the sense of organising the timber market.
In spite of reiterated initiatives by the European Parliament, to date the Council and the Commission have been reticent to produce a common European forest policy. Instead, successive fringe structural measures have been produced to support development in mountain areas, isolated forestry measures with a simple agricultural focus, combinations of isolated and dispersed regulations, accompaniment environmental measures for the reform of agricultural markets, or supplementary measures for environmental policies.
In summary, to date the European Union has designed residual measures and initiatives from other industry policies, primarily agriculture, but not a true strategy focused on forestry. The European forest policy is thus at a critical stage, with a very modest balance
63
IPF/IFF: Intergovernmental Forum/Panel on Forests, responsible to the CSD, where the global forest dialogue is being conducted.
due to discrepancies between Member States, the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament that reflect other structural differences. These include:
x
Profound differences in natural and social conditions between the States of the Union.x
A powerful North – South gradient in forest productivity, conservation values and degrees of threat. This gradient is not entirely linear: productivity increases southwards to the Pyrenees – Alps barrier, and is thus more a northwest-southeast gradient, changing radically when it reaches the south facing slopes of the Pyrenees and the Alps from a steady increase to a sharp drop with the accompanying increase in the fire hazard.x
Easy supply of the European production shortfall on the international wood market at low prices.x
Little social or political awareness of the indirect, non-commercial benefits of forests which are, moreover, intangible at market prices.8.1. COMMUNITY FOREST LEGISLATION
European forest law is not a block regulation aimed at applying a well-defined forestry strategy. Until the CAP reform, the European Union chose instead to regulate certain partial aspects through either direct assistance to the generators of certain forest products in the Member States, or structural assistance aimed at rural development programme funds. In 1989, the European Parliament passed the ‘forestry package’ covered by Regulations 1609 to 1615, which cover a range of forestry aspects from production subsidies to the creation of the Permanent Forestry Committee in the Council, which together form the above-mentioned combination of dispersed measures.
In 1992, the Council set up the farmland reforestation programme, which was aimed at withdrawing excess agricultural production by means of tree planting and the maintenance of existing masses of trees, both subsidised by the EU. The introduction to Regulation 2080/1992 shows that originally, these were ‘...accompaniment measures aimed at sustaining farm produce markets...’. Since then, however, the reforestation of farmland has been included in the Declaration by the Commission on a European Union Forestry Strategy, and since it inclusion in Chapter VIII on Silviculture, in the Rural Development Regulation.
8.2. APPLICATION OF THE STRUCTURAL FUNDS
In 1988, the former national conservation body ICONA started to become involved in a series of Programs co-financed by the European Union Structural Funds (EAGGF64-
64
Orientation and FEDER65
). In 1993, a new line of funding was opened via the Cohesion Funding Instrument.
The Community Support Framework 1994-1999 saw the continuation of the previous programmes within development line 4 (Agriculture and Rural Development) Objective 1 regions were initially assigned 47,000 million pesetas for conservation and improvement work on the natural environment, to be funded by EAGGF-Orientation with a subsidy rate of between 70% and 75%. Regions with Objective 5-b zones, were allocated almost 20,000 million pesetas with a reimbursement by EAGGF-Orientation of between 45% and 50% of public expenditure.
On 16 May 1994, the Council of the European Union passed Regulation (CEE) 1164/94 to establish the Cohesion Fund, which channels financial support for environmental projects and thus forestry projects with a nature conservation thrust. In 1997, however, the Treasury Ministry vetoed this source of funding for forestry projects for technical reasons.
In addition to these EU projects, there are others contemplated in Regulations 2157/92 and 2158/92 on forest protection against pollution and fires, the Financial Instrument for the Environment (LIFE) under Regulation 1973/92, and the CORINE programme. These initiatives lie in the framework of programmes funded by EAGGF-Orientation and, until 1997, by the Cohesion Fund under which investment projects for Objective 1 and 5-b Regions are eligible for investment reimbursement.
8.3. NEW PERSPECTIVES: THE EUROPEAN UNION
FORESTRY
STRATEGY
In spite of the background and impediments discussed in previous sections, in January 1997, the European Parliament used its new powers under Article 138 of the Maastricht Treaty to pass a Legislative resolution66
urging the Commission to draft a legislative proposal on an EU Forestry Strategy by the year 2000.
As a result of this obligation, the Commission has drafted a work plan to design a European Forestry Plan for the 21st century in accordance with the current international criteria and agreements. The basic objectives are to ensure that the concept of rural development includes the concepts of multifunctionality and ecological, economic and social sustainability of forests (agricultural-forestry or multifunctional silviculture systems) with the threefold purpose of stabilising the rural population, creating new jobs (new sources in rural areas) and protecting the environment.
65
European Regional Development Fund
66
This European Forestry Strategy was presented as a Communication by the Commission to the Council67
, which in turn passed an accompanying Resolution on 15 December 1998 to forward to the Parliament.
The programme objectives distinguish different management areas including the co- ordination and support for the forest policies of the Member States, the exterior forest policy of the Union and, above all, the need to design a new system of institutional and financial support to organise the current dispersal of administrative and budgetary responsibilities with effects on the forest policy, and strive towards legislative and financial harmony. As a consequence of the latter objective, the Commission has drafted a new Regulation on Rural Development, at present under debate, which groups all of the dispersed CAP accompaniment regulations, structural funds and agri-environment schemes that are applicable via three objectives and a single programme per Region, as well as envisaging a new specific financial instrument: the EAGGF-rural fraction. It is now common knowledge that this Regulation will include a specific chapter on forest policy to gradually merge the sector into the CAP. Along with the European Strategy, this Chapter (VIII) will form the core of the incipient European Forest policy.