Obligations of operators who place timber and timber products on the market

At its Plenary Session of 7 July 2010, the European Parliament adopted a compromise package which had been agreed with the Council in view of reaching a second reading agreement.

These amendments concern essentially:

• the imposition of a prohibition on placing on the EU market of illegally harvested timber and timber products,
• the imposition of an obligation on internal traders to keep records of from whom and to whom they sell timber and timber products on a commercial basis,
• recognition and withdrawal of recognition of monitoring organizations to be done centrally by the Commission,
• extension of the date of application of the Regulation to 27 months,
• amendment of the scope of applicable legislation through insertion of a reference to forest management and biodiversity conservation legislation directly related to timber harvesting,
• expansion of the risk assessment criteria by adding UN Security Council or Council of the European Union sanctions on timber imports or exports and prevalence of armed conflict,
• authorisation of the competent authorities to carry out check on operators and monitoring organizations when in a possession of relevant information, including substantiated concerns from third parties.

The Commission amends its proposal as set out above.