mr president by the time allocated to this debate one might say that parliament attaches little importance to saving forests
this stops the disappointment of discovering the shy commission approach to addressing illegal logging but what disappointed me the most was the repetition of the argument that we should not punish the good-faith eu operators in order to solve an external problem
part of solving a problem is also creating awareness about the problem and it is high time we acknowledged that some european regions like mine are also confronted with rampant deforestation
the illegal logging regulation does not aim to punish or to hinder trade but rather to better control trade
it is true that the commission proposals were not really clear on how the system should work in practice
i am pleased that the ep managed to strengthen and clarify the proposal by covering all timber products and requiring all operators to exercise some sort of due diligence by introducing a new baseline for financial penalties and providing clear criteria for a credible and independent monitoring system
now our challenge is to have this system adopted and implemented sooner rather than later
we need to give consumers the guarantee that they are not fuelling the environmental degradation by accidentally buying illegally harvested timber products
