Answer for question E-000936/25

EN E-000936/2025 Answer given by Ms Roswall on behalf of the European Commission (24.4.2025) The EU has a variety of competences shared with Member States that have an impact on forest protection and forestry, including climate, environment, energy and agriculture, which the Union has exercised respecting the principle of subsidiarity1. The EU has exercised these competences through the adoption of legislation using the appropriate legal basis. As forests are natural resources and an integral part of the environment, the Habitats2 and Wild Birds Directive3, the Land Use, Land Use Change, and Forestry (LULUCF) Regulation4, the Deforestation Regulation5, the Nature Restoration Law6, the Carbon Removal Certification Framework7 are based on Article 192(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), and so is the proposal for a Regulation on a Forest Monitoring Framework8, currently in the co-decision procedure. The Renewable Energy Directive9 has multiple legal bases under TFEU (Article 114 - internal market, Article 192(1) - environment and Article 194(2) – energy), while the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development10 is based on Articles 42 and 43(2). EU action on climate, biodiversity and circular economy as well as their benefits inherently relate to natural ecosystems, including forests. The mentioned Commission proposal for a Forest Monitoring Framework aims at having accurate, timely and comparable data on forests across the EU, in view of...