MEPs vote on forests, tyres and ship dismantling

Publication date: 20 March 2009

The European commission should propose sustainability requirements for all timber and timber products sourced from forests, the European parliament's environment committee said in a non-legislative resolution on deforestation adopted on Monday.

Sustainability criteria being developed under a new EU renewable energy directive would only apply to wood used for energy and a commission proposal to combat illegal timber does not cover the regulated market, an aide to Romanian rapporteur Magor Imre Csibi explained.

The committee also called for a quantified evaluation of the impact on forests of EU policies in areas such as energy – especially biofuels – agriculture, sustainable production and consumption and public procurement.

MEPs support tackling deforestation through a UN climate agreement and say assistance to developing countries must be "performance-based" and depend on "verified results". EU governments also support this.

The committee agrees the carbon market can help combat deforestation in the medium and long term but says forestry must be included only after "rigorous analysis". Forest degradation has been neglected by the commission, MEPs add.

Meanwhile, in a draft opinion on tyre labelling proposals, green rapporteur MEP Rebecca Harms failed to win support for her amendments to introduce a "traffic light" system for noise emissions and to include rolling resistance in the label.

These ideas may yet be adopted by the parliament's lead committee on the plans, the industry and energy committee, a parliamentary source said. A proposal to print the label on tyres rather than sticking it onto them was rejected and is unlikely to be revived, the source added.

A third resolution adopted on Monday repeats MEPs' call for EU action to prevent further environmental damage from ship dismantling in regions such as southern Asia. It re-invokes a resolution adopted last year, saying its views must be reflected as far as possible in a global ship recycling convention to be adopted in May.

Source: ENDS