In the absence of transfers of competence for forestry in the EU Treaty, its policies are still formally reserved for the Member States. However, although the Commission is only supposed to support them indirectly, it has also tried to conduct its own sectoral orientation of national policies via forest-related fields such as climate, environment, rural development or forest fire prevention. Such orientations have concretized either through interinstitutional exchange with the Council and Parliament or through participative processes with private actors.
Our paper aims to explain why the Commission as a whole is under pressure from a wide range of actors including its DGs (Agri, Env, Dev, En, etc.), but also national representatives of the sector. Grounded on my PhD research and three case studies (European forest based energy policy, forest fire prevention policy and action against illegal logging), I will demonstrate how the Commission has sought to face up to international competition and austerity by setting various objectives for improving the competitiveness of the sector. However, such attempts to induce change (Hassenteufel, 2011) have been interpreted differently by actors from its DGs and by representatives of national governments and members of the sectors. To grasp these differences I have analyzed in particular the political work (Jullien and Smith, 2008) of problematization (Rochefort and Cobb, 1993) and politicization (Lagroye, 2003) regarding territorialized forest issues (Carter and Smith, 2008). In so doing, I show that Commission and its DGs have engaged with local issues and sectoral actors and not just defined global objectives around one single model of capitalism.
My research is based on a constructivist and neoinstitutionnalist approach within Public policy analysis and a qualitative methodology using analysis of scientific and expert’s literature, as well as interviews with representatives of stakeholder representatives and EU institutions.
