EUSTAFOR co-hosts Roundtable on the Role of Forests & Forestry Sector in the future EU Bioeconomy

On 12 June EUSTAFOR hosted a roundtable event on bioeconomy in the European Forest House, together with CEPF, UEF and FECOF. The attendants saw presentations by the industry (Ms. Anna Papagrigoraki, CEPI), researchers (Mr. Nestor Domuschiev, Bulgarian Forest Agency) and the Commission (Mr. Michael Losch, DG AGRI).

In the first presentation Ms. Papagrigoraki represented CEPI, the European Association for Pulp & paper industry, and explained their views on the needs of the industry. She made the case that LULUCF targets for 2040 need to be revised and that the Biotechnology Act needs to be broadened to include manufacturing. She also explained CEPI’s position on cascading use, which focuses on phasing-out subsidies for bioenergy. They do not advocate for any new legislation, as they argue that this is already covered by RED III, the Green Claims Directive and the Industrial Decarbonization Accelerator Act.

Mr. Domuschiev’s presentation focused knowledge transfer and skills for the bioeconomy, and the role that policy can play here. He specifically zoomed in on CEE2ACT, a project that empowers Central and Eastern European countries to develop circular bioeconomy strategies. He argued that the best solution to build out the EU bioeconomy is to utilize these types of European projects.

The third presentation was given by Mr. Losch from the Commission, who gave an overview of the political state of play around this discussion. He shared that the Commission will come out with a new report on biomass this month. He also dove deeper in the contractionary nature of the recent forest policies, like the trade-off between reaching LULUCF targets and upscaling the European Bioeconomy, but also the balance between harmonization and subsidiarity that is often central in the discussion.

After the presentations there was room for discussion between the participants and the presenters. The questions were mostly aimed at Mr. Losch and focused on the plans of the Commission.