In 2005, the European Union (EU) adopted Regulation (EC) No 2173/2005 of 20 December 2005 on the establishment of a FLEGT licensing scheme for imports of timber into the European Community (hereinafter the FLEGT Regulation), as part of the implementation of the 2003 EU Action Plan on Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT). In 2008, the Commission also adopted Implementing Regulation (EC) No 1024/2008 laying down detailed measures for the implementation of the FLEGT Regulation.

 

As of 2020, Member States are required to make available to the public, by 30 April of each year, information on the application of the FLEGT Regulation during the previous calendar year (Article 8 of the FLEGT Regulation as amended by Article 9 of Regulation (EU) 2019/1010 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 5 June 2019 on the alignment of reporting obligations in the field of legislation related to the environment) (Reporting Alignment Regulation 2019).

 

Member States provide information on: (a) quantities of timber products imported into the Member States under the FLEGT licensing scheme, as per Harmonised Commodity (HS) heading specified in Annexes II and III of the FLEGT Regulation and per each partner country (Figure 2); (b) the number of FLEGT licences received (i.e. the number of FLEGT licences lodged with the Competent Authority), as per HS Heading specified in Annexes II and III and per each partner country (Figure 1); (c) the number of cases and quantities of timber products involved where Article 6(1) – on shipments not covered by a FLEGT licence – has been applied (i.e. acting in accordance with national legislation where shipments were not covered by a FLEGT licence (Figure 3)).

 

In 2020, Indonesia was the only partner country issuing FLEGT licences.

 

The information provided by Member States is a means to assess the status of implementation and the level of consistency achieved across the Member States, and the Commission makes public an annual union-wide overview (this document) based on this information (Article 9(3) of Regulation (EU) 2019/1010). The methodology for data analysis, further details of the datasets submitted in 2021 by 26 out of 27 Member States and the associated caveats resulting from the varying completeness and quality of national datasets is available here.