10 Amendments of Karin KARLSBRO related to 2019/2156(INI)
Amendment 1 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Welcomes the progress made through Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs), especially in Indonesia, and the increased dialogue between governments, industry and civil society in several countries resulting from the VPA process; Notes that to date, seven countries have ratified VPAs with the EU (Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Ghana, Indonesia, Liberia, the Republic of the Congo and Vietnam), among which Indonesia is the first and so far the only VPA partner with FLEGT licencing since 2016, and that the EU has concluded negotiations and initialled VPAs with Honduras and Guyana, while negotiations are ongoing with six other countries (Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Laos, Thailand and Malaysia); is convinced that the EU should continue to engage with VPA countries to ensure it remains an attractive alternative to export markets with less stringent environmental standards; welcomes the Commission’s upcoming fitness check of the FLEGT Regulation and the EU Timber Regulation;
Amendment 7 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 a (new)
Paragraph 1 a (new)
1 a. Notes with deep concern the recent developments in Indonesia regarding the discussion to lift FLEGT licensing, which will seriously undermine the VPA and the export advantages it provides to the EU market; calls on the Commission to take immediate action and through dialogue with the Indonesian government find a way to continue with the licensing, without jeopardising the integrity of the commitments under the agreement;
Amendment 13 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Calls on the Commission to step up capacity support to VPA countries in order to accelerate the implementation of the commitments made, including combatting corruption and greenwashing, enhancing good governance, and exploring the inclusion of more ambitious sustainable forestry provisions in trade and sustainable development chapters in free trade agreements;
Amendment 15 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2 a (new)
Paragraph 2 a (new)
2 a. Calls on the Commission to streamline and better coordinate its efforts in fighting illegal logging within the different EU policies and its services involved in the policies; calls on the Commission to negotiate timber import standards in future bilateral or multilateral trade-related agreements, in order to avoid undermining the successes achieved through the FLEGT Action Plan with timber-producing countries;
Amendment 19 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Calls on the EU to more closelystrengthen international cooperation by increasing efforts in key international fora, including the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Organisation for Economic Co- operation and Development (OECD); calls on the Commission to investigate avenues for multi-, pluri-, or bilateral cooperateion with like-minded importing countries in the fight against deforestation and climate change as a consequence of imports while safeguarding avenues for legal trade;
Amendment 25 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Underlines the importance of measures ensuring that demand is in line with the stated goals, such as the Paris Agreement and the European Green Deal, as the EU is a major importer of commodities associated with deforestation, such as soy, palm oil, eucalyptus, rubber, maize, beef, leather and cocoa, which are often drivers of global deforestation;
Amendment 31 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5 a (new)
Paragraph 5 a (new)
5 a. Is convinced that green public procurement policies can play an important role in encouraging trade in legal and sustainable timber; notes however that most EU Member States have mandatory purchasing policies for central government departments and voluntary policies for local authorities that undertake the majority of public spending; calls on the Member States to improve their statistics on the volume of wood they purchase including the indication of how much sustainable, legal or FLEGT-licensed material might be included within their procurement;
Amendment 36 #
5 b. Repeats its demand that imports of timber and timber products should be more thoroughly checked at the EU borders, to ensure that the imported products comply with the criteria necessary to enter the EU; stresses that the Commission needs to ensure that custom controls throughout the EU follow the same standards, by means of a direct unified customs control mechanism, in coordination with Member States and in full compliance with the principle of subsidiarity; believes that the EU needs to ensure imports to and production within the EU only support global supply chains and financial flows which are sustainable and deforestation-free and do not result in human rights violations by reinforcing private sector efforts through policies and appropriate measures;
Amendment 40 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5 c (new)
Paragraph 5 c (new)
5 c. Calls for the EU to address global deforestation also by regulating European trade and consumption of forest-risk commodities, such as soy, palm oil, eucalyptus, rubber, maize, beef, leather and cocoa, based on lessons learned from the FLEGT Action Plan, the Timber Regulation, the Conflict Mineral Regulation, the Non-Financial Reporting Directive, legislation on illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU) and other EU initiatives to regulate supply chains;
Amendment 42 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5 d (new)
Paragraph 5 d (new)
5 d. Underlines that the drivers of deforestation go beyond the forest sector per se and relate to a wide range of issues, such as land tenure, protection of the rights of indigenous people, agricultural policies, climate change, democracy, human rights and political freedom; recalls that indigenous women and women farmers play a central role in protecting forest ecosystems; calls on the Commission to step up its efforts to address deforestation holistically through a coherent policy frame, i.e. by ensuring effective recognition and respect of land tenure rights of forest-dependent communities, particularly in case of EU development funding, as well as in the screening process of the FLEGT-VPAs, and in such a way as to enable subsistence in local community forestry, while ensuring the conservation of ecosystems; believes that gender equality in forestry education is a key point in the sustainable management of forests, which should be reflected in the EU Action Plan;