SUMMARY The European Community was founded in 1952, when the Treaty of Paris established the European Coal and Steel Community. Within eight years of the end of the Second World War, this brought together Belgium, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands as Member States in the common management of critical economic sectors, essential for the success of post-war reconstruction. Over the decades since then, the initial ambition of the Community has been greatly developed. 1958 saw the creation of the Economic and Euratom Communities. Over the following 10 years or so the main policies of the Community laid down in these Treaties were put in place and in particular the agricultural policy. In 1973 the Community enlarged from six to nine Member States when Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom joined. Eight years later, in 1981, Greece became the 10th Member State. And in 1986, Portugal and Spain brought the number to 12. In line with the enlargement of the Community, its objectives have also been expanding. Today, the Community is involved, to a greater or lesser extent, in most areas of political, economic, financial, social and cultural activity. Its task include, within the Community itself, achieving and maintaining freedom of establishment, the opening of public procurement to form the single Community market, technical standarts and the harmonization of legislation in a wide variety of fields, scientific and tecnical research, industrial collaboration, competition policy, agriculture and fisheries and transport policy and, towards the Third World, the external trade policy of the Community and its important contribution to development and aid. In addition it plays a major role in the environment, energy and regional policies, in important areas of social policy and with some areas of education. - 86 -The Community has not developed in a vacuum: it has always had to take account of the complex and constantly changing outside world. For this reason, it has relations with most countries in the world, centred on the common commercial policy, for which it has spesific responsibilities, and on the Community's policy towards the developing world. The Community now looks forward to further development, with the ambotious objective of completing the common internal market by 1992 by the abolition by that date of the remaining barriers to free internal trade in goods and services, and at the same time the development of common support policies for the Community's regions with lower levels of economic activity through a doubling of the financial help provided by the Community's structural Funds. The Community Forests have a vital role to play over the coming years in bringing abobut a new social and economic equilibrium necessary to resolve the current recession. Forestry has not been a major concern of the Community until now, but its importance is steadily growing. Woodland provides the economy with an essential renewable resource, it is a crucial environmental factor, it is of major significance to the continuation of agriculture, it is a recreational asset to society and it is the basis for aid schemes in the developing world. In short, Forests are a key area for the Community which it should help to protect, develop and exploit. Recent trends in the action taken by the Community demonstrate the growing attention devoted to forestry. Up to a few years ago the Community's forestry activities were confined to a handful of specific schemes, such us afforestation and woodland improvement in designated areas, and to plant protection and improving the quality of reproductive material; more recently these activities have been expanded considerably. The Community has become particularly involved in forestry research, the integration of forestry in to regional development programmes, the inclusion of forestry schemes in general policy on agricultural structures, the reduction of pollution in order to protect trees, the organization of contacts between different sections of the timber industry, tree planting as a means of combatting desertification in developing countries, and so on. The new forestry schemes undertaken recently have thus all been inspired and supported by Community policies not - 87 -specifically directed at forestry. These have included the common agricultural policy, research policy, regional policy, environmental policy, and so on. Under each of these, both funds and administrative resources - in some cases substantial - have been allocated to forestry. Taken as a whole, these resources have probably amounted to more than could have been made available under a Community forestry policy proper. In certain respects, the scope of the recent expansion of Community forestry activities could paradoxically be attributed to the lack of a forestry policy since existing Community policies have stepped into the breach. In some cases, indeed, forestry has been a fruitful area into which to extent activities under these other policies. Today Community doesn't have `a real forestry policy` at the Community level. Forestry is a natural part of the common agricultural policy, but the main product-timber-is not one of those covered by the common agricultural policy. The EC woodworking industry ranks second in the world behind the USA, where production amounted to ECU 29 150 million in 1988 Japanese production reached ECU 20 137 million and has been steadily growing since 1980. The USA production is on the other hard decreasing since 1985 Investment in the EC amounted to ECU 964 million in 1988, which is a 12 % increase compared to 1987. Production of the woodworking industry represents 5.6 % of total GDP. (Production amounted to ECU 22 720 million in 1988) The data and comments presented lead to the following conclustions with regard to forestry strategy: -Despite of increase in domestic connsumption, an increase in domestic production -Extending forest areas through afforestration -Maintenance of existing by afforestation -Encouragement of timber production outside the forest -The conversion and improvement of low-yield stands -Improved access to existing forest areas -Improve environmental conditions and public amenity function of forests - 88EC Forests cover about 24 % of land of Community. EC annual production per ha in m3 of raw wood is more than Turkey. In EC proportion of industrial rawed wood higher than proportion of fire wood. But in Turkey, proportion of industrial rawed wood is very low. Turkey has been imported wood and wood products since 1987. But especially Turkey has a chance for non-wood products and would be export them. Aims of EC Forestry Strategy is not different from Turkey's. But Turkey has very kind of forestry problems such as wrong land use, forest-public relatios, not completed land registration, environmental, political and administirative problems. So, first of all Turkey have to solve all its forestry problems. If Turkey can not achieve this, It would not possible to apply Forestry Actions in Turkey. - 89 -
