| Abstract |
This article presents and analyses the evolution of the European Union's forest policy prior to the adoption of the European Green Deal in 2019. We provide an overview of the main EU policy initiatives and documents related to forests and forestry up to 2018, based on a content analysis of policy documents and legal acts as well as literature on the subject. In the following sections, Strategy (2013), and the review of progress in implementing the new EU Forestry Strategy (2018). Our review illustrates the evolution in terms of forest policy formulation by the European Union. Although the EU treaties did not provide a legal basis for EU regulation on forest-related issues, numerous initiatives have been undertaken since the 1960s, initially under the Common Agricultural Policy. Increasing problems with the natural environment, linked mainly to the massive destruction of tropical rainforests and forest fires in the Mediterranean forests, and growing public awareness prompted the EU institutions to take a series of activities in the 1980s and 1990s that broadened the range of forest-related initiatives. As a result, the first EU Forestry Strategy was adopted in the form of a Council Resolution in 1998. Since the early 1990s, Member States and the EU institutions have been taking join action to develop a forest policy framework at the supranational level. Since the early 1990s, forest policy at European level has been supported to a large extent by the Forest Europe process where the European Union and all European countries are signatories), reflecting also global environmental agendas within the United Nations. Forest Europe and EU policies have influenced and complemented each other, and all of the above processes have been clearly reflected in EU policy objectives and actions. |