Synthetic Assessment of the Governance of Forests and Protected Areas, Related EU Policies, and Their Domestic Implementation

This chapter provides an actor-centered assessment of the governance of forests and protected areas in Romania. It investigates the implementation of the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR) and its effectiveness in addressing illegal timber logging and trade. We use an analytical framework based on the Europeanization theory and the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF). In line with the Europeanization literature, we find that in the case of EU forestry policy, a non-acquis policy area partly characterized by a lack of clear EU legal basis and partly by EU policy and legal (dis)integration paradox, national decision-makers responded to pressures to integrate nature conservation into forestry. Domestic actors, allied in a social-environmental advocacy coalition, could use EU rules, strategic cooperation, and links with the broader EU good governance plan to improve domestic forest policy procedures and limit state capture. However, the practical implementation of the EUTR and the EU nature and biodiversity policy is jeopardized by forest overexploitation and illegal logging linked to weak law enforcement capacity, widespread corruption, unsolved policy and institutional deficiencies notably regarding private forest ownership, and counterproductive effects of “successful” EU market integration and foreign investment forces.