Commission welcomes political agreement on Forest Reproductive Material

This article is brought to you in association with the European Commission.

The European Commission welcomes the political agreement reached today by the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament on the proposal concerning forest reproductive material (FRM). Today’s agreement concludes two years of negotiations and constitutes a major step for the future of our forests.

FRM are the seeds and seedlings used to establish new forests. The new rules will ensure the quality and availability of forest reproductive materials, which are crucial for conserving and restoring forest ecosystems and play an important part in helping forests adapt to climate change. It will help to maintain healthy forests across Europe and ensure that the right tree is planted in the right place.

The new framework will help build a sector for Forest Reproductive Material which is sustainable, innovative, supports biodiversity and will help face future challenges. It will also help guarantee the quality and health of FRM, in turn promoting the economic value of the forestry sector.

Once fully adopted and implemented, the rules agreed today will:

• Improve the performance and effectiveness of official controls through harmonised rules focussing on risk-based controls.
• Reinforce the assessment of sustainability characteristics of parent trees, used to produce tree seeds and seedlings. This means that trees will be checked for their capacity to contribute to more resilient forests, for example tolerance to diseases and adaptation to local climatic and ecological conditions.
• Ensure traceability throughout the FRM cycle, from approved parent trees to the marketing of FRM to the end user.
• Strengthen the conservation of endangered forest genetic resources, to maximise the genetic diversity of trees to meet future needs and improve resilience to our changing environment.
• Encourage Member States to adopt national contingency plans to ensure preparedness and capacity to establish a sufficient supply of FRM, in order to reforest areas affected by extreme weather events, fires, pest outbreaks and other disasters.
• Support digitalisation and innovative production processes, bio-molecular techniques and digital solutions, to transform FRM into a modern and forward-looking sector.

The proposed Regulation also maintains the principles of registration of ‘parent trees’ (‘basic material’) and certification before FRM can be placed on the market. It is based on two pillars: (i) the harvesting of FRM from registered parent trees (i.e. basic material) and (ii) the certification of FRM to ensure high quality of seeds and seedlings.

Background and next steps

On 5 July 2023, the Commission adopted a legislative proposal on the production and marketing of forest reproductive material (‘Regulation on forest reproductive material’). The proposed Regulation will replace the existing marketing Directive on the marketing of forest reproductive material.

The aim of this proposal was to harmonise the rules on FRM across the EU and prepare the sector for the future by improving official controls in the sector, addressing potential future shortages of FRM due to climate change and other disasters, and facilitating the conservation of forest genetic resources.

The revised Regulation must be formally adopted by the Council and European Parliament. New rules will start applying 5 years after the new Regulation enters into force.

For More Information

Future of EU rules on plant and forest reproductive material – Food Safety