"Bureaucracy monster"

New EU attack on our small forest farmers

Tree felling is hard work - even without EU bureaucracy

(Bild: KFV APA Fotoservice/Nachtschatt)

Every tree trunk is soon to be given a "digital ear tag". This will create an enormous bureaucratic burden for forest farmers - even though illegal deforestation hardly plays a role in Lower Austria. The provincial parliament is therefore against the plans from Brussels.

The EU's so-called deforestation regulation is not just a bizarre word monster. It is also a bureaucratic monster that threatens to make life difficult for local farmers. At least that's how the People's Party and the Freedom Party in Lower Austria see it. They want to mobilize together against this regulation in the state parliament on Thursday - precisely on "Forest Day".

Why Lower Austria is against it
"40 percent of our federal state is covered by forest," explains Jochen Danninger. Specifically, that is around 770,000 hectares, according to the ÖVP party leader. Half of this is managed by family farms. "And they will be faced with a new bureaucratic burden that is out of all proportion," says Danninger. According to the Deforestation Ordinance, the origin of wood must be precisely documented. This means that if a tree is felled, the Latin name, the quantity and the exact geo-coordinates of its location must be entered into a central reporting system.

The bureaucratic effort involved is out of all proportion. And that is why we will clearly reject this in the state parliament session.

Jochen Danninger, Klubobmann der ÖVP

Bild: NLK Burchhart

 "Every tribe gets a digital ear tag," explains Reinhard Teufel, head of the FPÖ parliamentary group. This is intended to curb excessive culling throughout the EU. Teufel: "However, illegal deforestation is not an issue in our country. This regulation therefore does more harm than good." This is because small forest owners could be forced to stop managing their forest areas due to the enormous additional bureaucratic burden. "This regulation is not feasible for them," says Teufel.

As is so often the case when something comes from the EU, this regulation does more harm than good. It cannot be implemented in practice,

Reinhard Teufel, Klubobmann der FPÖ

Bild: APA/HANS PUNZ

The two coalition parties will therefore decide tomorrow to call on the Federal Government to press Brussels for "practical implementation" of the deforestation regulation.

Yes to supporting agriculture. But nature must not only be preserved, it must also be restored.

Hannes Weninger, Klubobmann der SPÖ

For SPÖ parliamentary group chairman Hannes Weninger, however, the debate is "a little out of date". Too much overexploitation of nature has been carried out in the past: "This must stop now!"