On the draft Council decision on the termination of the Voluntary Partnership Agreement between the European Union and the Republic of Cameroon on forest law enforcement governance and trade in timber and derived products to the Union

The Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) between the EU and the Republic of Cameroon entered into force on 1 December 2011 for a period of seven years. As it is tacitly renewable, the current seven-year period will expire on 30 November 2025.

Located in the Congo Basin, nearly 40% of Cameroon’s territory is covered by tropical forests. However, deforestation remains a major issue, with 900,000 hectares of forest cover (equivalent to 5%) lost between 2011 and 2022. The primary drivers of deforestation include agricultural expansion, wood harvesting, extractive activities (such as iron mining and petroleum extraction), and infrastructure development. In addition, illegal and unsustainable logging continues to degrade the forests. Nearly half of Cameroon’s total exports are directed toward European markets, with timber ranking as the third most significant export, after petroleum and cocoa. However, all three sectors contribute to deforestation, and their expansion is a core part of Cameroon’s national development strategy for 2020-2030. The VPA was primarily designed to establish a legal framework ensuring the legality of timber exports to the EU by improving national control systems and governance while introducing legal verification and traceability systems.

Since the VPA came into force, the Cameroonian government has failed to implement its key measures, particularly the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) licensing scheme, as well as the legality verification and traceability systems. Furthermore, law enforcement remains weak due to a lack of resources and persistent corruption. Some slight improvements have been observed since 2020, including a decline in illegal logging rates in managed forests and a reduction in the share of illegal timber in both the export and domestic markets, as analysed in a report by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR). However, the VPA's contribution to these changes is assessed as relatively weak, especially when compared to similar agreements with other developing countries.

In recent years, Cameroon's timber exports have shifted toward Asian markets, where legality and sustainability standards receive little attention. In 2021, 59% of timber exports were destined for China and Vietnam, compared to 38% for the EU. For logs, exports to these two Asian markets accounted for 98%. A 2020 investigation by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and the Centre pour l’Environnement et le Développement (CED) uncovered widespread violations of export laws, illegal harvesting, and labour violations, all at the core of the illegal timber trade between Cameroon and Vietnam.

Your rapporteur believes that this situation damages the credibility of the EU as a global leader in forest protection, sustainable and multifunctional agroforestry, soil and landscape conservation, biodiversity, rural economic development, human rights standards, and the integrity of VPAs as EU trade instruments.

Nonetheless, your rapporteur believes that it is of primary importance to draw key insights from the positive aspects of the FLEGT-VPAs process, particularly in terms of forest governance, and integrate them into any future Forest Partnership. Such partnerships should be established with the full involvement of the European Parliament. To be effective, they must be developed through an inclusive process that actively engages small-scale farmers, civil society, local communities and indigenous people while also incorporating an effective monitoring and enforcement mechanism.

Given these challenges, the Council considers that continuing the VPA could undermine the credibility of both the EU and the VPAs as trade instruments. The VPA between the European Union and the Republic of Cameroon has not been successfully implemented. If it were to be terminated, EU cooperation with Cameroon should shift toward supporting the country in implementing measures aligned with the upcoming EU Deforestation Regulation.

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The Committee on Development calls on the Committee on International Trade, as the committee responsible, to recommend approval of the draft Council decision on the termination of the Voluntary Partnership Agreement between the European Union and the Republic of Cameroon on forest law enforcement governance and trade in timber and derived products to the Union.

The rapporteur for the opinion declares under her exclusive responsibility that she did not receive input from any entity or person to be mentioned in this Annex pursuant to Article 8 of Annex I to the Rules of Procedure.