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8 Irish Foresf'rymitted to the Council in March 1965. (It includes forest plants andwood). It is still being discussed and has not yet been approved.I believe that it has been decided that from now on nO' basicregulation will be passed by the Council before consulting the newmembers of the Community. This rule will be applied to thisphyto-sanitary directive.The general rules of the Treaty lead us to deal with many othermatters such as forest statistics, forest and forest products taxation,state grants and assistance to private forestry, economics, etc.In other words, a certain amount of co-ordination of nationalforestry policies is advisable, but as the Treaty makes no obligationfor this co-ordination, it can only be worked out on a voluntarybasis and I must add that mOire enthusiasm and good will wasprevalent towards this co-ordination twelve years ago than today.A few years ago, for example, we endeavoured to co-ordinateforest research programmes in order to avoid unnecessary duplicatianand waste af maney and manpower: unfortunately, thisproject cauld not be started because co-ordination an researchwork was not possible within some countries where research isnot centralised.I must state here, befare going any further, that we are interestedIn a variety of subjects, for instance profitability in farestry,palicies in the pulp and paper sector and, of course, prablemsconnected with the environment althaugh the Treaty which wasdrawn up in 1956-57 does not make any reference to them.FORESTRY AND AGRICULTUREThe latter part of my talk wiJ) be devated to' the role of forestryin the common agricultural palicy.I told yau that we could not have a common forestry policybecause wood is nat in A ppendix II af the Treaty although a smallminority, mainly private forest owners, have persistently asked farthe Treaty to be amended.Legal experts have studied this matter in detail and have reachedthe conclusion that some maves related to farestry palicy could beundertaken under Article 39 of the Treaty which states that "thecamman agricultural policy aims at increasing the productivity afagriculture . . . by means af the optimum utilisatian af thelfacto:rs O'f productian (the soil) . . . and at ensuring a fairstandard af living for farmers ... ".If we agree that a forestry policy is not intended only to producewood, but also cantributes in many cases to improving the prafitability of the soil and the economic situatian of the farm, then we