Opinion of the Committee of the Regions on the "Proposal for a European Parliament and Council Regulation concerning monitoring of forests and environmental interactions in the Community (Forest Focus)"
Date: 2003-02-12
Institutions: European Committee of the Regions
Subjects: EU environmental policy, environmental monitoring, forest

29.5.2003

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 128/41

Opinion of the Committee of the Regions on the ‘Proposal for a European Parliament and Council
Regulation concerning monitoring of forests and environmental interactions in the Community
(Forest Focus)’

(2003/C 128/06)

THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS,

having regard to the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Regulation concerning monitoring
of forests and environmental interactions in the Community (Forest Focus) (COM(2002) 404 final —
2002/0146 (COD));

having regard to the Council’s decision of 26 July 2002 to consult it on this matter, under the first
paragraph of Article 175 of the Treaty establishing the European Community;

having regard to the decision of its president of 23 September 2002 to instruct the Commission for
Sustainable Development to draw up an opinion on this subject;

having regard to the Council Resolution of 15 December on a Forestry strategy for the European
Union (1);

having regard to the European Parliament Resolution of 31 January 1997 on the European Union’s
forestry strategy (2);

having regard to the recommendations made in its Opinion on Management, use and protection of
forests in the EU (CdR 268/97 fin) (3);

having regard to its Opinion of 18 November 1999 on the Commission Communication on a forestry
strategy for the European Union (CdR 184/1999 fin) (4);

having regard to the draft Opinion (CdR 345/2002 rev.) adopted by the Commission for Sustainable
Development on 12 December 2002 (rapporteur: Mr Durnwalder, Governor of the Autonomous Province
of Bozen-Südtirol/Bolzano-Alto Adige, I/EPP),

adopted the following opinion at its 48th plenary session, held on 12 and 13 February 2003 (meeting on
12 February).

Introduction

The Committee of the Regions,

1.
welcomes the Commission’s efforts to establish a new
EU-coordinated scheme for monitoring forests and environ-
mental interactions to protect the Community’s forests, which
develops and consolidates the objectives of Regulation (EEC)
No 3528/86;

points out, however, that a comprehensive long-term
2.
monitoring scheme to oversee the condition of forest ecosys-
tems absolutely must take all causes of damage into account,
i.e. natural causes (parasite infection, disease, weather effects)
as well as anthropogenic factors (atmospheric pollution);

( 1) OJ C 56, 26.2.1999, p. 1.
( 2) OJ C 55, 24.2.1997, p. 22.
( 3) OJ C 64, 27.2.1998, p. 25.
( 4) OJ C 57, 29.2.2000, p. 96.

3.
highlights the need for the entities that provide the data
— i.e. the Member States and local and regional authorities —
to have the possibility to monitor how the data is used and
disseminated;

4.
stresses the need to employ comparable, internationally
consolidated standards in order to achieve effective monitoring
with viable scientific data;

5.
regrets that the definition of forest ecosystems in the
proposed directive (Article 3(1)(a)) is not consistent with the
fundamental aims of the proposal;

6.
notes that limiting the new monitoring scheme to just
six years might not allow efficient and successful long-term
monitoring and proposes that the scheme last twelve years
instead (see point 13);

7.
emphasises that the new scheme provides for compli-
cated investigations entailing considerable extra investment
costs in the testing areas, which have to be covered by adequate
funding. It assumes that the funds provided for in the proposal
for a regulation take specific account of this;

C 128/42

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

29.5.2003

8.
calls for the relevant local authorities to be fully involved
in the implementation and application of the monitoring
scheme, and especially in managing local observation areas.
The role of local authorities should be clearly defined in the
context of the subsidiarity principle.

Recommendations

The Committee of the Regions,

recommends that Article 1(a) should be amended to read

9.
as follows:

‘a) monitoring and protection of forests against atmos-
pheric pollution and natural damage (parasitic infection,
other diseases, weather effects, etc.)’;

recommends that Article 2(2) be amended to read as

10.
follows:

‘2.
The actions set out in paragraph 1 shall be comp-
lementary to Community research programmes, while
respecting consolidated international standards’;

recommends that Article 3(1), be amended to read as

11.
follows:

‘with regar to definitions, that a distinction be made
between (a) “forests” and (b) “forest ecosystems”,
the
distinctive feature of a forest ecosystem being the presence
of a recognisable forest soil’;

13.
recommends in relation to Article 4(2) that the criteria
for selecting observation points for the intensive monitoring
network, which are to be laid down in the implementation
rules, should also include those sites offering longer data series
for key chemical and physical parameters such as climate,
levels of pollution, location variables, etc. and which receive
long-term resources (financial and logistical) from the relevant
local or regional authorities;

disapproves of the obligation on Member States set out
to submit an ex-ante evaluation to the

14.
in Article 8 (4)
Commission;

recommends in relation to Article 12(1)

15.
the
scheme run for at least 10 years if it is supposed to be a long-
term project;

that

16.
calls in relation to Article 13 for an increase in the
financial resources provided for in the interests of a long-term
approach to the programme, with investment costs being
recognised as eligible for co-financing;

17.
with regard to Articles 8 and 14, calls on the Com-
mission to stipulate in its proposal that Member States should
be bound to involve the relevant local or regional authorities
more closely;

that

recommends

18.
introductory sentence of
the
Articles 6(1) and 7(1) of the proposed Commission Regulation
begin as follows: ‘For the realisation of the aims set out in
Article 1(D), the Member States and the Commission,
in
conjunction with the regional and local authorities, shall ...’;

recommends that Article 4(1)(a) be amended to read as

12.
follows:

continue and further develop a systematic network
‘b)
of observation points, while incorporating existing key
plots from various European research programmes (e.g.
ICP-Forests, ICP-IM, Carboeurope),
in order to conduct
periodic inventories in order to get representative infor-
mation of forest ecosystems conditions’;

19.
recommends with regard to point 5.2 of the Annex that
the target population should also include regional groupings
addressing similar issues (cross-regional studies, demonstration
projects, experiments);

20.
recommends, in relation to Article 17(1) of the pro-
posed Commission Regulation, that the Commission coordi-
nate its recommendations on forest monitoring with the
standing Forestry Committee.

Brussels, 12 February 2003.

The President

of the Committee of the Regions

Albert BORE