The Finnish Forest Industries Federation (FFIF) is lobbying the European Commission in a bid to block change to an EU directive on plant safety which it says will cause the industry serious problems.
The aim of the change to the directive is to stop the spread of the Siberian moth from Russia to the west.
The FFIF fears that, in practice, this would mean phytosanitary certificates being demanded for timber arriving from Russia – a move the FFIF believes would bring imports to a halt.
The FFIF has written to EU health commissioner David Byrne asking for the current directive to be left unchanged.
Around six million m3 of Russian coniferous wood is imported into Finland each year, divided into some 150,000 shipments. The new directive would mean each shipment needing certification proving it to be pest-free.
The FFIF believes that if the new directive is implemented, the work involved would be so time-consuming that it would lead to sawmills and pulp mills in eastern Finland having to close.
