global environmental legislation guide - National Marine ...

Further amendments to the implementation of the regulation are currently beingnegotiated and will be published in due course.The FLEGT Action Plan contained commitments to examine domestic legislation in EUmember states, to analyse whether it could allow action against imports of illegal timber andto examine options for additional legislation, should existing domestic legislation proveinadequate. There are documents below that contain studies published on this issue.In accordance with the goal of the communication, namely to ensure that only timberproducts that have been produced in accordance with the national legislation of the timberproducingcountry enter the union, the union has been negotiating Voluntary PartnershipAgreements (FLEGT VPAs) with timber-producing countries which create a legally bindingobligation for the parties to implement a licensing scheme and to regulate trade in timberand timber products identified in those FLEGT VPAs.EN 12.11.2010 Official Journal of the European Union L 295/23Issues for the recreational marine and superyacht industriesThe newly agreed legislation, published in November 2010, is intended to work alongsidethe EU FLEGT licensing system, which identifies legal timber and timber products in producercountries and licenses them for import to the EU. This system is being developed throughthe negotiation of a series of voluntary partnership agreements (VPAs) with cooperatingproducer countries. For a variety of reasons, some countries that export timber to the EUwill not join the proposed VPAs, at least not in the immediate future.The question of what measures could be taken to exclude illegal products exported fromnon-VPA countries to the EU have therefore led to a debate on 'additional options'.After a long period of analysis and consultation, the commission announced its conclusionswith the publication of the draft 'due diligence' regulation in October 2008. The draftregulation was debated by the European Parliament and Council in 2009. The council'srevised version was published in March 2010 and following a debate on potentialstrengthening amendments in the Parliament's Environment Committee, the final legislationwas approved by parliament in July 2010. It was later formally approved by the council on 11October 2010.11. Recasts of Directives 2002/95/EC and 2002/96/EC restricting the use ofhazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment andpromoting the collection and recycling of such equipment.EU legislation restricting the use of hazardous substances in electrical and electronicequipment (Directive 2002/95/EC) and promoting the collection and recycling of suchequipment (Directive 2002/96/EC) has been in force since February 2003. The legislationprovides for the creation of collection schemes where consumers return their used e-wastefree of charge.22