Illegal logging

Second, the number of such partnership agreements was and continues to be small: by the end of 2015, thus ten years after the adoption of Regulation 2173/2005, six voluntary partnership agreements had been concluded, with the Central African Republic, Cameroon, Republic of Congo, Liberia, Ghana and Indonesia. Negotiations were ongoing with Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Guyana, Honduras, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. Russia and China, two countries which imported considerable quantities of timber into the EU, had not manifested any interest in concluding a voluntary partnership agreement with the EU. Numerous major timber exporting countries had thus not yet concluded such agreements.

Third, the possibilities to disregard the provisions of the voluntary partnership agreement remained high: the partner country was asked to verify the legality of timber exports to countries outside the EU, but no control mechanism was foreseen (for example, Article 9(3) of the voluntary partnership agreement with Cameroon); thus, imports from such third countries into the EU remained possible, though several partner countries decided to also apply the FLEGT-licensing scheme internally and to exports to third countries.

The voluntary partnership agreements faced numerous implementation difficulties. The partner countries all had difficulties in setting up a reliable, functioning FLEGT-system. The Court of Auditors, in a Report in autumn 2015, identified the lack of capacity, the widespread corruption and the poor law enforcement as the main reasons for the implementation deficit. The Commission continues discussions with and financial support of countries which manifested interest in reducing illegal trade in timber. For example, it mentioned that China "is covered by a specific bilateral cooperation mechanism on FLEGT with the EU" (2015 Report of the Court of Auditors).