Authorities must focus their “Biomass action plans” on making more wood available to avoid further disruption of the wood value chains. All subventions that support the direct burning of wood must be stopped!
Brussels, 24 October 2006: The European social partners in the woodworking industries, the European Federation of Building and Woodworkers (EFBWW) and the European Confederation of Woodworking Industries (CEI-Bois), signed a joint position on the impact of the current policies on renewable energy sources (RES) on the wood sector.
The social partners stress that wood is a renewable and multi-functional resource, which stores the CO2 captured from the air by trees. Increased use of wood products hence takes more CO2 out of the atmosphere thereby creating a carbon sink. Regretfully however, the European, national and regional RES policies and biomass action plans are distorting the wood markets.
During the press conference on the joint statement, CEI-Bois Vice Chairman Mr Ladislaus Döry was proud to announce that the forest-based industries create value to the European forests, which are expanding in a sustainable way. The Economic and Social Committee of the European Union indeed forecasts that 100 million m³ of wood could be made available additionally every year taking account of the actual net annual growth of European forests.
The EU’s “Biomass Action Plan”, however, requests the Member States to produce an additional amount of 80 million tonnes oil equivalent (Mtoe) of biomass energy annually until 2012. Taking into account wood’s energy content and the current share of wood in biomass energy production, this would require the Member States to burn an additional volume of 240 million m³ of wood every year.
This leads to the obvious conclusion that the Biomass Action Plan will create a shortage of 140 million m³ of wood per year. Although the European Commission states that “any shortfalls can be addressed by imports”, the representatives of the woodworking unions Messrs Dieter Koinig and Harrie Bijen showed that the woodworking companies are already now confronted by severe shortages of wood leading to increasing costs as well as to temporary unemployment and even to job losses. The CEI-Bois Chairman, Mr Mikael Eliasson, concluded that many jobs are at risk in the EU-25 in the woodworking industries, which provide work for 2.7 million employees in some 270,000 companies generating an annual turnover of 226 billion EUR.
EFBWW and CEI-Bois therefore urge the authorities at all levels to stop all subventions to the direct burning of wood and to foster the use of wood before it is being burned for energy generation at the end of its life cycle. EFBWW and CEI-Bois urge the authorities to always involve the wood-based industries as the competent key partner whenever considering support to biomass energy. This will ensure optimal mobilisation of wood taking account of the specific regional situation to ensure that targets are being set and achieved without disrupting the existing value and employments chains.
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