Cutting Deals: Transnational Advocacy Networks and the European Union Timber Regulation at the Eastern Border

ABSTRACT

The European Union’s (EU) Green Deal gives increased attention to the sustainability of international product cycles by implementing ‘due diligence’ requirements. We examine the difficulties in the implementation of the European Union Timber Regulation (EUTR) in two countries with weak management capacities such as Romania and Ukraine. We find that domestic and transnational civil society actors can support the implementation of due diligence requirements mainly by challenging the dominant position of private and state actors engaged in cutting deals with the EU-based wood industry, as well as contributing to increasing politicisation, raising awareness and public mobilisation.

KEYWORDS:

• corruption
• illegal forest activities
• civil society
• Green Deal
• Ukraine
• due diligence

The European Union (EU) has often sought to promote itself as a leader in the field of sustainability both on the international stage (Torney et al. 2018) and by acting as a promoter of progressive environmental policies vis-á-vis its member states (Zito et al. 2020). The European Green Deal, announced in December 2019, is set to further this trajectory by promoting a green and circular economy. In this context, the sustainability of international product cycles has received increased attention (Smit et al. 2020). Implementing ‘due diligence’ requirements along international supply chains depends not only on member states with very different capacities and will (or lack thereof) to do so: more importantly perhaps, it is also contingent on the capacity and willingness of third countries, over which the EU has only limited influence. In order to provide an assessment of the pitfalls and potential of such due diligence systems, this article focuses on the implementation of the EU’s timber legality regime that has been in place for a decade and is thus well set to provide lessons also for the European Green Deal (Partzsch and Vlaskamp 2016; Overdevest and Zeitlin 2015; Nathan et al. 2014).

Our choice of the timber legality regime is motivated by the importance of forestry for achieving the goals of the European Green Deal and the significant concerns that have been raised in recent years about global illegal forest activities as one of the major obstacles for sustainability transitions. While acknowledging the complexity of the phenomenon, we use the term “illegal forest activities” as encompassing “all illegal acts that relate to forest ecosystems, forest-related industries, and timber and non-timber forest products” (Tacconi et al. 2003, 4). Illegal forest activities are driven both by supply-side factors in the countries where timber originates from and by the demand side where it is sought after (McCarthy and Tacconi 2011). EU member states and EU-based industries play an important role on both sides. In order to combat illegal forest activities, the EU has focused on protecting its own forests and the sustainable, legal sourcing of timber globally. An explicit external dimension to EU forestry policy is relatively recent: it has been established only since 2003, starting with the EU’s Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan and continuing in 2010 with the European Union Timber Regulation (EUTR). The EUTR (995/2010) prohibits the placement of illegal timber and associated products on the EU market and requires EU traders to exercise due diligence by tracing the origin of timber, keeping records of their suppliers and customers (Sotirov et al. 2017).

While most of the literature focuses on illegal logging associated with implementation problems in developing countries due to inadequate law enforcement, lack of administrative capacity or corruption (Durst et al. 2006), we analyse EUTR implementation within the EU and its immediate neighbourhood. In doing so, we complement recent scholarship on risk factors and gaps in the causal chain leading to this policy’s implementation (Köthke 2020; McDermott and Sotirov 2018) and concerns over “transparency, broad stakeholder engagement, and the establishment of sustainable business practices” of the EUTR (Moser and Leipold 2021, 129).

By focusing on Romania and Ukraine, we ask to what extent and in what way domestic political processes and relations between EU member states and neighbouring countries contribute to understanding the EUTR’s implementation deficits. The two country cases show the impact of EU regulation both within and outside the Union. Both countries are often regarded as weak, captured states and weak societies in the literature (Langbein 2015; Buzogány 2013; 2015). In our case studies, we focus on explaining why illegal forest activities go unchecked and investigate the role played by administrative capacity and levels of compliance with regulations. Our assessment looks at the implementation of EU norms at the national level in Romania and Ukraine using documentary analysis of policy and reports from international and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), as well as a wide range of media coverage of forestry-related conflict issues in both countries. This helps consider the diversity of opinions of, and contrasting narratives from, the networks of actors operating in this policy area. Based on this assessment, we argue that political will to act against illegal forest activities can be triggered by public pressure, which often results from mobilisation by domestic and transnational advocacy networks (TANs). At the same time, EU due diligence policies not only suffer from weak implementation in the target states but are also weakened by the EU’s market demand. Coupled with limited implementation and the EUTR’s strong focus on legality and market access, we find that the policy fails to fully address sustainability issues.

Our findings emphasise the complex political economy behind the implementation of sustainability policies by analysing the role played by different actors in the forestry-related governance system at both the domestic and transnational level. Transnational coalitions of domestic and transnational civil society advocate not only for better rules but also for their implementation (Dimitrova and Buzogány 2014; Noutcheva 2016). While this strengthens the EU’s “experimentalist timber legality regime” (Overdevest and Zeitlin 2015), the pull from the EU’s timber market on illegal forest activities is unlikely to diminish in states with weak governance structures. In-built tensions between different primary EU goals, such as sustainability and market integration, are likely to remain unsolved and thus contribute to maintaining the unsustainable status quo.

The next section outlines our analytical framework, which highlights that the implementation of EU regulations leads to changes in domestic power relations. This can differentially empower actor coalitions with status-quo or, by contrast, sustainability-oriented preferences. We also briefly introduce the policy area and the EU’s due diligence requirements related to the timber trade. The two following sections discuss the policy process and the coalitions’ role in the implementation of the EUTR provisions in Romania and Ukraine. We conclude by summarising the case studies and relating them to the developments envisaged in the European Green Deal.

Europeanisation and transnational coalitions

To theoretically frame our analysis, we rely on the Europeanisation scholarship developed to understand EU-driven change. This literature focuses on the shift in the power balance caused by the differential empowerment of domestic actors as the main mechanism for EU-induced policy change. In the case of EU member states, the obligation to implement legally binding policies is the main trigger for change in entrenched power structures. Conceptually, Europeanisation is related to two distinct causal mechanisms determining the ‘domestication’ of European policies (Börzel and Risse 2003). One of the mechanisms through which the EU differentially empowers certain stakeholders over others is by changing the cost-benefit calculations of actors, for instance by offering market access to business actors. The other mechanism emphasises the role of policy learning and socialisation. This happens through dialogue and negotiations: signing international agreements increases the pressure on politicians to adopt the given policy and provides pro-reform constituencies with the opportunity to demand reforms. Both mechanisms empower some actors over others by offering them either material or ideational resources. The literature on EU external governance shows that, even without binding character, similar dynamics are at work also in non-EU countries, where trade or association agreements lead partner countries to commit to policy changes (Lavenex 2004). EU environmental policies have especially been sought after as templates far beyond EU borders (Biedenkopf et al. 2017; Buzogány and Costa 2009).

Transnational coalitions and networks play an important role in this process as they can provide financial capital and technological innovation, offer access and attention or teach new norms or standards. International business networks promoting regulatory change and common standards often influence domestic government-business relations (Langbein 2015). Similarly, as highlighted in the literature on transnational advocacy networks (Keck and Sikkink 1998), civil society can exert pressure on governments by reaching out to transnational networks of like-minded organisations or filing complaints at higher levels of governance that circumvent the national level. For instance, such ties allow domestic actors to complain in Brussels and put pressure on their governments both via European institutions as well as by mobilising international and domestic public opinion. Connecting to sectoral policy networks at the EU level can provide even domestically weak actors with important political opportunities and strong allies (Imig and Tarrow 2001). In the case of the EU’s eastward enlargement, monitoring reports issued yearly by the European Commission on the progress in accession preparations highlighted the necessity to include and consult with societal actors (Börzel and Buzogány 2010).

While most of the Europeanisation literature is focused on policy change resulting from EU action, cases where domestic change does not occur are equally telling. Policy misfit, weak state capacities or strong domestic veto players are often used to explain non-compliance with EU norms (Treib 2014). While the literature is somewhat biased towards pro-European actors that profit from Europeanisation, transnational coalitions might also become involved in obstructing policy change, either because the status quo serves their interests well or because they regard EU-induced changes as normatively or morally wrong (Parau 2010). Another underlying assumption in the Europeanisation literature that can be relaxed is that EU rules are clear and produce winners and losers. Frictions between different EU rules, which empower different actor groups and pit them against each other, are less present in the literature. EU policies geared towards economic integration and growth vs those that protect the environment or sustainability are classic cases where such conflicts might occur. Thus, coalitions both for and against EU-induced policy change can affect whether that policy change takes place at all. Domestic coalitions are often more entrenched and stronger than transnational ones, and the power of business-related actors outweighs that of civil society-based advocacy coalitions (Hess 2014). However, legal pressure to comply with EU legislation in the case of EU member states, or historical contingencies, such as aspirations of becoming an EU member, can alter such entrenched power dynamics (Dimitrova and Buzogány 2014). By focusing on key players involved in policy change and the formation of ‘pro-market’ and ‘anti-logging’ coalitions, we aim to highlight the role played by domestic and transnational actors in policy implementation and the maintenance of the status quo.

Our case studies focus on the implementation of the EUTR, a core piece of the EU’s forestry legislation and a prime example of the early application of due diligence requirements to EU legislation (Partzsch and Vlaskamp 2016). Despite a long history of EU measures supporting common activities in the field of sustainable forest management in EU member states, forestry policy remains a largely nationally dominated area (Pülzl et al. 2018). In 2003, the EU launched the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance, and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan, which stipulated common action of the member states aiming to ban illegally harvested timber from EU markets. The FLEGT Action Plan addressed both supply- and demand-side aspects of sustainable forestry. Focusing on the supply side, the EU supports legal and sustainable forest management through Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs), which help partner countries reform their forest management and issue FLEGT licenses (Fishman and Obidzinski 2015). This has been complemented by the EUTR, which has been an important milestone for the development of an external dimension to the common timber trade policy by focusing on the demand side. Essentially, the EUTR posits that only legally harvested timber and timber products can be placed on the EU market; to this aim, it requires traders both in Europe and beyond to provide evidence by keeping records that allow the traceability of their products. This entails the establishment of a ‘due diligence system’, which assures that traders provide information regarding the timber products they place on the market. At the same time, traders should be able to assess and mitigate the risk of illegal timber in their supply. While the lion’s share of related costs affects timber traders, member states are required to establish competent authorities responsible for implementing the EUTR and to lay down effective and proportionate penalties to enforce it (EUTR 2010).

An emerging literature documents the implementation of the EUTR in Europe and elsewhere. According to monitoring reports, implementation is slow and uneven across member states (European Commission 2016). Sina Leipold (2017) focused on Germany as the first country to enact the regulation and highlighted the difficulties in motivating private actors. Other studies have emphasised the interlinkages between the EU’s timber legality regime and international biodiversity law (Ituarte-Lima et al. 2019) or private certification systems, such as the Forest Stewardship Council (Gavrilut et al. 2015; Buliga and Nichiforel 2019). Our contribution discusses the political controversies related to the implementation of the regulation on the ground in Romania and Ukraine. These are shaped by conflicts between ‘pro-market’ and ‘anti-logging’ coalitions and highlight the role played by domestic and transnational actors in policy implementation. In both cases, we start by outlining the initial status quo in the forestry sector and how the EUTR requirements have affected it. We then turn to the role the pro-market and anti-logging coalitions played in the implementation process.

Implementing the EUTR in Romania

The Romanian case shows the challenges faced in the field of forestry management by EU member states with weak administrative capacities and uncontrolled privatisation. As Ramona Scriban et al. (2019) argue, key failures in the governance of forest restitution in Romania were related to the policy instruments used to regulate private forestry, which is usually small-scale, fragmented and subsistence-oriented. For state-owned forests, the National Forestry Directorate Romsilva holds a monopoly position with authority over auctioning, harvesting and auditing functions. Because of these overlaps, Romsilva was often seen as a hotbed of “personalistic networks of exchange and reciprocity [… with] a high level of direct, official participation in illegal transactions” (Novac and Auer 2004, 109). The overall regulatory framework has been characterised by “perpetual redrafting” (Dimitrova and Buzogány 2014, 149) and frequent organisational reshuffles which moved forestry administration back and forth from one line ministry to another. At the same time, the weakness of local-level enforcement (Novac and Auer 2004, 102-7) is recognised to be one of the major problems leading to an increase in illegal logging activities, while clientelist networks in local and national politics were the main profiteers of illegal timber trade. According to the Romanian National Forest Inventory, during the last decade, more than twice as much timber has been cut than what was legally authorised (EIA 2020).

The implementation of the EUTR in Romania has been problematic from the beginning because of weak administrative capacity, widespread corruption and legislative uncertainty. Laws designed to operationalise FLEGT and subsequently enforce the EUTR, such as the timber traceability information system SUMAL, were adopted already in 2008,¹ but their implementation was either technically difficult or constantly delayed. Legal implementation of the EUTR took place in Romania with a significant delay, through Decision 470 of 4 June 2014. When in 2013 the draft New Forestry Law liberalised timber exploitation further and weakened sustainable forest management principles, this met with growing criticism from civil society. This created a policy vacuum that “impacted some of the forest sector stakeholders’ (and certified companies’) perception, understanding, and interpretation of the Regulation” (Gavrilut et al. 2015, 6). The growing contention concerning forestry policy prompted the Romanian government to pass an ordinance on penalties for law infringements in 2016, encompassing “more than 200 new contraventions compared with the previous law and set[ting] the amount of fines at a very high level” (Scriban et al. 2019, 65). The first EUTR implementation report shows that Romania received the highest number of penalties of all EU member states: 382 for violations related to domestic timber and 17 for imported timber (UNEP-WCMC 2018). To address some of the implementation problems, Romania updated the SUMAL system (Agerpres 2020) and adopted a controversial ten-year ban on exporting unprocessed timber outside of the EU, starting from 1 January 2021 (Digi24 2020).

The EUTR’s implementation problems in Romania cannot be fully understood without taking into account the power constellation of business and political actors holding vested interests in timber exploitation. Romania has become particularly attractive to foreign investors thanks to cheap timber and labour throughout the pre-accession period. The arrival of large Western European investors, such as Holzindustrie Schweighofer, Kronospan and Egger in the early 2000s, has significantly changed the Romanian timber processing sector. These companies now own the largest share of the domestic market and are established leaders in the global timber value chain, with exports increasingly directed outside the EU (BBC 2015).

With the creation of an anti-corruption agency specialised in forestry that started investigating allegations of corruption at higher levels, since 2015, the Romanian government has shown more systematic engagement with the issue. Among the major investigations launched have been those of the head of Romsilva and several politicians from the ruling Social Democratic party (Ibid.). Since 2017, Romania’s Competition Council has also become increasingly concerned that ‘dysfunctionalities’ in the timber market may have driven the price of Romanian timber upwards (Romania Insider 2019). For their part, private actors such as Holzindustrie Schweighofer and the domestic furniture industry kept complaining about competitiveness losses (Wall Street 2019). At the same time, however, these companies have faced recurring accusations from environmental NGOs of having built their business model on the legal purchase of illegal timber from Central and Eastern Europe and Ukraine (Lehermayr et al. 2020). According to investigative reports, collusion with state authorities facilitated the market monopoly of Schweighofer (EIA 2015); accusations of processing illegal timber were also widely reported in the international media (Vaughan 2015). This led to increasing public pressure on the company both in Romania and Austria, where it has its headquarters. Adding to this, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) withdrew its certification, and several international DIY retailers discontinued purchasing timber produced by Schweighofer (Romania Insider 2018). To counter this, the company launched a sustainability offensive, including measures such as the “Zero Timber from National Parks” campaign, an open doors policy for NGOs and the establishment of its own due diligence system, which made the supply chain more transparent and traceable (European Wilderness Society 2018).

These developments were at least partly a result of the emergence of large-scale popular mobilisation. A first campaign mounted by 20 NGOs resulted in a petition entitled “Save the Forest: take the saw away from Holzindustrie Schweighofer!”. The coalition included both domestic and international environmental NGOs, journalists and academics working together on media reports and mobilising street protest (Mitran 2015). It also made use of petitions to the European Commission, which prompted the launch of an infringement procedure (INFR(2015)2152) 2015) against Romania. In 2019, the killing of six park rangers led again to massive street protest against illegal logging and corruption (McGrath 2019). This was followed by a formal complaint to the European Commission by a TAN led by Agent Green (Romania), EuroNatur (Germany) and the international law NGO ClientEarth, which eventually resulted in a letter of formal notice by the Commission asking Romania to “properly implement the EUTR”, protect forest habitats and allow public access to environmental information (European Commission 2020a). The presence of international NGOs in the TAN made these protests resonate abroad and helped trigger change among key players of the pro-market coalition.

Overall, despite the shortcomings of EUTR implementation, there is reason for increasing optimism about the extent to which the EUTR can act as a restraint on illegal logging in Romania. Following persistent mobilisation by TANs directed against illegal logging and corruption, the salience of implementing EUTR-related policies has increased in Romania. The tightening of the regulatory framework, ongoing media attention and public protests have not only led to changes in the national forest administration, but have also influenced the behaviour of business actors, which have become more cautious in using high-risk commodities.

Implementing the EUTR in Ukraine

Confronted with a tightening regulatory framework in Romania, including lost court cases, public criticism of their negative role in supporting illegal logging as well as difficulties to supply factories with cheap timber, the Western European companies active in Romania have turned their attention further East and established large production sites directly on the border with Ukraine. The Ukrainian forest governance system shares many of the structural problems that neighbouring Romania has faced over the last three decades. Like in Romania, the forestry sector is negatively affected by poor infrastructure, large-scale illegal logging and unclear division of labour between political, controlling and managerial functions (Nijnik et al. 2021). After reaching independence, illegal logging has decimated the most precious parts of Ukrainian forests (Kuemmerle et al. 2009). While, in contrast to Romania, forests in Ukraine are still state-owned, with the State Forest Resources Agency being in charge of forest management and exploitation, large-scale corruption has thrived and benefitted from close ties to the highest political echelons. According to a report by Anatoliy Pavelko and Dmytro Skrylnikov (2010), corrupt practices included the use of intermediary firms for channelling timber exports, illegal trade using counterfeit export certificates, bid-rigging via price cartels and widespread petty corruption at the local level. After the Maidan revolution in 2014, the former Head of the State Forestry Agency has been convicted in absentia, but corruption cases remain frequently reported.

As around 50 per cent of Ukraine’s wood-based exports are destined to the EU market (Timber Trade Portal 2020), the implementation of the EUTR has implications both for the Ukrainian side and for the EU and its member states. Consequently, Article 294 of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU underlines the necessity of cooperation in the field of sustainable forest management, including forest law enforcement and governance. At the same time, the agreement also prohibits any form of export restrictions (Article 35), essentially opening the Ukrainian timber market to the European forestry industry. In 2015, however, Ukraine introduced a ten-year ban on the export of raw logs (Reg. no. 1362 of 2015), and in 2017, unprocessed timber of all species has also been included in the wood export prohibition, which is set to continue through 2027. Key supporters of the moratorium were protectionist and activist groups around Ostap Ednak, an MP of the Ukrainian Rada. Besides environmental considerations, the main argument behind the moratorium was to ease the toll on Ukrainian forests and to promote the development of a more sophisticated domestic wood-processing industry with higher value-added. These positions were also supported by the domestic wood-processing industry, such as the Association of Furniture and Wood Processing Enterprises and the Ukrainian League of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, fearing that increases in wood prices for domestic producers and demand for timber exports would lead to timber shortages in Ukraine (Buzogány 2016).

The pro-market coalition in Ukraine includes the Ukrainian export-oriented forestry industry interested in accessing the EU timber market and logging companies from the EU interested in Ukrainian timber supply (Ibid.). The introduction of the timber moratorium met with strong criticism also from liberal groups fearing increased state intervention in the economy (Mylovanov 2015). The pro-market coalition argued that the moratorium violates the Deep Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA), the Association Agreement (Article 35) and the standstill obligation included in Regulation 374/2014, which grants preferential trade measures to Ukraine (De Micco 2015). These concerns have led to intense lobbying for a presidential veto against the introduction of the law, which former President Petro Poroshenko had not supported initially but was finally pressed to accept (Mylovanov 2015). A second legislative initiative to weaken the moratorium was introduced under EU pressure in 2018 but failed to find a majority in the Ukrainian parliament (KyivLis 2018).

Five years after its introduction, the effects of the Ukrainian logging moratorium are hard to assess conclusively. On the positive side, the Ukrainian woodworking industry has indeed started to recover, and the furniture and paper industries are experiencing substantial growth as well. As stated in a report by Ukraine World (2018), this has resulted in a higher tax income from these sectors. At the same time, however, a report by Earthsight (2018) argues that there has also been a strong increase in unregistered sawmills in the Carpathian region not far from the Romanian-Ukrainian border, suggesting that only part of the profits goes into state coffers, while illegal logging continues at a great pace. Illegal forest activities remain indeed a big problem, and the log export moratorium is reported to have other detrimental effects. One of the major problems is related to the weak capacity and unwillingness to control timber exports at the Ukrainian-Romanian border. High-quality timber is often misclassified as firewood, which has a lower export value. A second issue concerns the quantity of timber legally logged in Ukraine. There have been frequent reports of the misuse of ‘sanitary felling’, that is, clearcutting to prevent the spread of diseases, in natural parks (Ukraine World 2018).

While national and local media had already reported on corruption in Ukrainian forestry previously, public attention and outcry have markedly increased in recent years, targeting multiple actors. Not only have corrupt Ukrainian officials been under greater scrutiny, but there is also growing attention to the complex political economy of the global timber trade in which Ukraine is involved. This increasingly includes a focus on the demand side, that is, the Western European wood industry that acts as a retailer of Ukrainian wood. According to an influential report based on two years of field research by the London-based NGO Earthsight (2018), some of the largest EU companies of the wood industry are involved in, or at least aware of, illegal transactions when buying Ukrainian timber. This places the development of a new wood processing cluster right on the Ukrainian border in a new perspective: Schweighofer and Egger have recently relocated their main manufacturing sites to the very north of Romania. According to the Earthsight report, these companies have at least not complied with the due diligence requirements under the EUTR. Such claims became a matter of fierce debate both in Ukraine and abroad. Following the publication of the Earthsight study, Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groisman has initiated a large-scale crackdown on corrupt business practices (Earthsight 2020). Based on similar pieces of investigative journalism, WWF expressed a substantiated concern to the Austrian competent authority regarding four Austrian companies importing timber from Ukraine (WWF 2020).

At the same time, the Ukrainian timber export moratorium has come under significant pressure from the EU. The Juncker Commission made macro-financial aid and later granting visa-free travel to Ukrainian citizens conditional on abolishing the timber moratorium. Several further instances of political pressure from the European Commission on the Ukrainian government to end the moratorium have failed (KyivLis 2018). As these pressures came to nothing, a trade dispute between the EU and Ukraine was opened in 2020. In order to substantiate the ineffectiveness of the moratorium, the European Commission relied on the abovementioned Earthsight study (European Commission 2020b). In December 2020, the arbitration court ruled that the timber moratorium infringed the DCFTA but at the same time recognised Ukraine’s right to restrict timber exports under specific circumstances (Attorneys.ua 2020).

In sum, in Ukraine, we witness developments similar to those in Romania, although with a temporal lag. Weak governance structures and unwillingness to implement EUTR provisions are intimately tied not only to domestic vested interests but also to the opportunity to cut deals with the EU-based wood industry, which profits from the availability of cheap natural resources and the weak regulatory context. At the same time, increased attention by the media as well as domestic and transnational civil society networks induces greater compliance with the EUTR.

Conclusion

The EU’s timber legality regime is one of the first examples of applying due diligence requirements to international supply chains. In this article, we analysed the implementation of a key component of this regime, the EUTR, in Romania and Ukraine, which are often seen to be marred by bewildering levels of illegal forest activities and by both small- and large-scale corruption in the forestry sector. We discussed difficulties in the implementation process and highlighted how these became increasingly politicised, pitting different actor coalitions against each other.

A common trend in both Romania and Ukraine is the emergence of new actor coalitions, which have become increasingly involved in the later stages of the policy cycle, in monitoring and enforcement. Growing activism of environmental NGOs, domestic and international alike, the media and the public meant that civil society actors increasingly managed to fill the data gap on illegal logging and provide alternative sources of information for an increasingly attuned and active public. While this activism is weaker in Ukraine, some of the work of international think tanks and NGOs (Earthsight, EIA, WWF, Greenpeace) covers both countries. The key accusations by these TANs about profiting from illegal logging are directed towards different actors in the two countries. While in Romania these are mainly large Western European timber companies, illegal logging activities in Ukraine were mainly linked to state-owned companies engaging in corruption with the help of local mafia-like structures to the benefit of the EU-based timber companies that are the main recipients of timber from the entire Central and Eastern European region.

This picture is consistent with the emerging literature on EUTR implementation across the EU member states (Leipold 2017) as well as the EU’s own evaluations (European Commission 2016), which show a limited and uneven implementation record. What we add here is an understanding of the configuration of those private and civil society actors that are differentially empowered in the process of Europeanisation; this epitomises the conflict and tensions between sustainability and market-oriented policy instruments and solutions. The dominant position of private actors has been increasingly challenged in recent years by TAN actors supporting sustainable forestry practices. They have been able to use investigative journalism techniques and satellite imaging to monitor illegal logging, often contradicting the data reported by national authorities and using the media to publicise their findings. Widespread popular mobilisation in Romania has prompted domestic political actors to investigate high-profile corruption cases but also led to a change in policies and the initiation of a dialogue with the private actors under scrutiny. The lesson for domestic forestry institutions is to engage in a more sustained dialogue with TANs and use them as a monitoring resource that could support overstretched and under-resourced administrations.

The forestry sector does play an important role in achieving the goals of the European Green Deal. Sustainable forestry management can build on the new discourses of the green and circular economy to embrace technological innovation, recycling and eco-efficiency. But for these discourses to take hold in practice, the implementation problems of the existing market-based legal frameworks need to be addressed. This also sheds light on the challenges in implementing due diligence requirements along the supply chain. As attention to international product cycles is making its way into EU policies geared towards non-member states, the experiences made in the forestry sector can be useful in other transboundary regulatory fields as well.

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the UACES Research Network ‘The Role of Europe in Global Challenges: Climate Change and Sustainable Development’ for the organisation of a dedicated online workshop. We thank the co-editors for bringing this special issue to fruition, as well as the journal editors and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. The Jean Monnet Network ‘Governing the EU’s climate and energy transition in turbulent times’ (GOVTRAN:  www.govtran.eu), which is funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union, deserves credit for additional support.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Simona Davidescu

Simona Davidescu is a Lecturer in Politics at the University of York, York, United Kingdom, and a Research Fellow with the EU-Asia Institute, ESSCA School of Management, Angers, France.

Aron Buzogány

Aron Buzogány is a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Forest, Environmental, and Natural Resource Policy, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), Vienna, Austria. Email: [email protected]; Twitter: @BuzoganyA

Notes

¹ Several ministerial orders (OM) and government decisions (HG) were issued, without implementation: OM 583/2008 SUMAL Methodology; OM 584/2008 ITRSV SUMAL Accord; OM 596/2014 SUMAL Testing; HG nr. 1.004/2016 on the origin, movement and marketing of timber; and finally HG 497/2020 on the origin, movement and marketing of timber and implementation of EC Regulation 995/2010. The latest updated version of SUMAL was launched in Romania on 30 January 2021.