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REPORT (COM(2023)0727 – C90424/2023 – 2023/0410(COD))

On the proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Council Decision 89/367/EEC setting up a Standing Forestry Committee

A-10-2025-0175

Committee on the Environment, Climate and Food Safety Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development · Rapporteur: Emma Wiesner, Pekka Toveri

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Parliament's amended version of the proposal to amend Council Decision 89/367/EEC renames the Standing Forestry Committee as the Standing Forest and Forestry Expert Group and updates its tasks and composition.

Committee position. The committees propose to amend the Commission proposal, renaming the committee as an expert group and clarifying its tasks and composition.

Key points

  1. The expert group shall advise the Commission on any issue or aspect concerning forests and forestry from relevant Union policies, on its own initiative or at a Member State's request.
  2. It shall assist and cooperate with the Commission in preparing and implementing legislative proposals, strategies, communications, guidelines or other initiatives that would have significant impact on forests or forestry within the Union.
  3. It shall ensure an adequate contribution of Member States' forestry sector to Union objectives, promoting coherence and synergies, eliminating inconsistencies, and addressing cumulative impact and compatibility with subsidiarity and proportionality.
  4. It shall enhance cooperation between the Commission and Member States, including under the common agricultural policy, considering sustainability, synergies between forests and agriculture, and socio-economic development of forest-dominant rural areas.
  5. It shall foster exchange of knowledge, experience and good practices, act as a forum on emerging issues and multiple functions of forests, and exchange views on applicability and implications of Union policies.
  6. It shall seek synergies and avoid conflicts between national and Union forest-related policies, considering international developments.
  7. It shall formulate opinions on relevant Union initiatives; the Commission shall consider those opinions and provide feedback on how it has done so.
  8. The European Parliament and the Council may assign other temporary tasks to the expert group on a proposal from the Commission.
  9. Each Member State shall be invited and strongly encouraged to designate national experts and facilitate their participation in meetings.
  10. Member States shall nominate representatives ensuring active engagement of their relevant authorities, able to represent their interests and experience on all relevant policy objectives.
  11. The expert group shall be chaired by a Commission representative, who may present its annual working plan to the European Parliament.

Who is affected

  • Member States: they are invited to designate national experts and ensure active engagement of relevant authorities in the expert group.
  • The Commission: it receives advice from the expert group and must consider its opinions and provide feedback.

Legal basis: Articles 43 and 192(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union