Conflicts and policy priorities drive differences in the EU Forest strategy implementation : insights from 15 European countries

Pecurul-Botines, Mireia (author), Pezdevšek Malovrh, Špela (author)

Conflicts have arisen between Member States and the European Commission around the European Union Forest Strategy either because of differing opinions on whether forests should be considered as a commodity, as nature to be conserved, or because of disagreements about the EU's competencies vis-à-vis national sovereignty of forests. These conflicts highlight high and diverging stakes in the EU's governance of forest ecosystems. At the national level, impending changes related to EU regulations impact the forest-based sector and its governance, including monitoring and access to finance. Despite not being legally binding, the EU Forest Strategy is significantly influencing national policies within the broader EU political framework. To what extent this new strategy exacerbates existing conflicts or shapes new ones is not well understood. The main objective of this study is to understand whether and how conflicts and different policy prioritization may influence the implementation of this key EU Strategy at the national level. Theoretically, this study draws on Europeanization studies to understand how different forest-related conflicts are connected to attempts to integrate European forest policy at the EU level. Empirically, an analysis of policy documents and interviews with policy experts in 15 European countries was conducted. Our analysis provides a rich overview of the extent to which diverse national policy developments align with the EU Forest Strategy goals and how these developments connect to existing or newly emerging conflicts around the Strategy's implementation. Based on these insights, we suggest potential ways to overcome the challenges and advance forest policy in Europe.

• Language: English
• Keywords: forest policy, Europe, EU forest strategy, conflicts, policy path dependencies, Europeanization
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: BF - Biotechnical Faculty
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2025
• Number of pages: 14 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 181, art. 103652
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-175438
• UDC: 630*93+630*97(4-6EU)
• ISSN on article: 1872-7050
• DOI: 10.1016/j.forpol.2025.103652
• COBISS.SI-ID: 254934019
• Publication date in RUL: 27.10.2025

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Forest Policy and Economics
• Publisher: Elsevier
• ISSN: 1872-7050
• COBISS.SI-ID: 23098885

Licences

• License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
• Description: The most restrictive Creative Commons license. This only allows people to download and share the work for no commercial gain and for no other purposes.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: gozdarska politika, Evropa, gozdarska strategija EU, konflikti, odvisnosti političnih poti, evropeizacija

Projects

• Funder: Other - Other funder or multiple funders
• Funding programme: The governments of Austria, Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Norway, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden
• Name: EFI’s Multi-Donor Trust Fund for policy support