I was looking for something else and just stumbled upon this news from the European effort to address illegal logging. As a part of a vote on the EU joining an international agreement on timber trade, the European Parliament agreed to join the treaty but pointed out its major weakness:
As I discussed here, illegal logging has a number of major ramifications, not the least of which is its impact on deforestation and global warming pollution. And since imports of illegal wood and wood products into developed countries is significant, policies in the developed countries can have an impact in stemming this destructive activity. For example, the EU is a big importer of wood from the countries with high deforestation rates...15% of Brazil's wood exports go the EU and 25% of Indonesia's (from data we pulled together). This doesn't account for the wood products (e.g. furniture, toys, etc.) which either directly or indirectly (e.g., from Chinese exports) come from these countries.
The EU is taking baby steps towards addressing these imports through a recent agreement with Ghana that would stop imports of illegally-harvested timber from the West African nation.
Will the European Union (EU) come forward with an import restriction as the US has just adopted? It seems that if the European Parliament has its way, the EU will follow the US action and the demands of a number of groups by adopting an import ban. We'll just have to wait and see if the EU can import something besides illegal wood - like an approach that the US adopted (rarely can you say that these days on environmental issues).