The Belgian government sent a circular letter to all public services and organisations subject to control of the state with regard to their wood purchasing policy.

The circular lists a range of requirements for the purchase of wood and wood products. It tables that wood products made from FSC or PEFC Belgium certified wood are deemed to meet the requirements. On the other hand, PEFC certificates from other countries would have to be examined by an expert committee, in order to see if they fulfill the requirements of a strongly developed social dialogue and the respect for indigenous people.

This expert committee, (experts from trade, industry, NGOs, trade unions) could not get to an agreement over a full support to the PEFC schemes, because of the lackm of consensus, the chair of the meeting had to draw his own conclusions and submitted these to the Minister, who approved them.

Summarized, these conclusions read as follows:

Two lists of acceptable (positive) PEFC schemes have been made. However,in case of two comparable offers, priority shall be given to wood from list 1. More in general, for public procuremenjt, either wood with an FSC-label, wood with a certificate from PEFC Belgium or from a system of list 1 have priority. This means that offers will not only have to list the certification scheme, but also the origin of the wood.

The lists are as follows:

Positive list 1:
-            PEFC Chile
-            PEFC Denmark
-            PEFC Germany
-            PEFC France
-            PEFC Italy
-            PEFC Lithuania
-            PEFC Luxemburg
-            PEFC Norway
-            PEFC Austria
-            PEFC Portugal
-            PEFC Slovak republic
-            PEFC Spain
-            PEFC Czech republic
-            PEFC United Kingdom

Positive List 2:
-            PEFC Australia
-            PEFC Brasil
-            PEFC Canada
-            PEFC Finland
-            PEFC United States
-            PEFC Sweden

The content of the lists is not definite. As soon as new elements are brought forward, the expert committee can reconsider the issue and in any case, it is foreseen that the lists will have to be reviewed annually.

The European Timber Trade Association (FEBO) has protested against this way of handling this issue, as they consider it being discriminatory and arbitrary.

News-ID: 08X4Z7P7KV

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