Branko D. Glavonjić

Eight years after the European Union Timber Regulation (EUTR) came into force, its effectiveness is still unsatisfactory due to deficient and uneven implementation among member states. In addition, some Western Balkan countries have poor legality monitoring systems, increasing the risk of trade in illegally harvested timber. Regardless of this, no recent work has analyzed the adaptation of national forest policies to the EUTR obligations. Our study aims to contribute to the understanding of EUTR implementation by analyzing the adaptation of policies of the Western Balkan countries (Slovenia, Croatia, and Serbia) to the EUTR. Qualitative content analysis was conducted on 22 policy documents from Slovenia, Croatia, and Serbia. Documents were coded using coding categories derived from EUTR. Our results point out that none of the analyzed countries have a policy to directly address illegal logging or prevention of illegal activities. As EU members, Slovenia and Croatia has implemented EUTR through laws. The Slovenian Forest Act addresses all EUTR obligations, while Croatian Law on EUTR Implementation does not directly address the obligation of legality. This obligation is addressed by the Law on Forests. As Serbia is not an EU member, it did not implement EUTR. Nevertheless, Serbian Law on Forests addresses all EUTR obligations, but has some discrepancies regarding Traceability obligation. With ongoing discourses on Green Deal policies and the increasing focus on “deforestation-free” commodities, stricter implementation might be expected of EUTR at EU level. Most countries would probably have to build capacities for EUTR implementation and become more transparent and responsible concerning information availability. To successfully implement EUTR, an increased number of checks as well as stricter fines will be needed.

Selected South-Eastern European countries (SEEC - Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia) represent significant producers and exporters of wood flooring in Europe. In 2018, 9.4 % of Europe's wood flooring production originated from this region. The region is a net exporter of wood flooring since it exports over 50 % of total production. The most important market for the export of wood flooring is the European Union with a share of over 60 % in total exports. Trends in this market are important for manufacturers and exporters from the region. Therefore, the analysis of the impact of the European Union imports on wood flooring production in the SEEC was conducted by application of econometric modelling. The parameters of the obtained model show that the increase of approximately 0.75 % could be expected in the production of wood flooring in selected South-Eastern European countries for each precentral increase in the European Union imports. In addition to these results, the paper presents the analysis of the competitiveness of wood flooring export from the region measured by the Competitiveness Growth Index (RCA1). The aim of this analysis was to quantify the level of their price and non-price competitiveness in the European Union market. Conducted analyses show that the Competitiveness Growth Index (RCA1) had positive values (higher than one) for most significant countries from the SEEC for most of the observed period.

This paper focuses on two main research topics: the situation in the field of wood energy efficiency utilization in households in the region of Southwestern Serbia, and econometric modeling of wood energy consumption dependent on the size of the heating surface, the existence of thermal insulation on residential buildings, the age of heating appliances and moisture content of wood fuels. The results of the conducted research showed that the consumption of wood energy in most households ranges between 300 and 400 kWh/m2. This is considered energy inefficient. Although in the majority of households the size of the heating surface ranges between just 20 and 80 m2, exactly in these households the highest and the most inefficient consumption of wood energy expressed in kWh/m2 was registered. The first reason for the high consumption of wood energy is the fact that only 29% of residential buildings have thermal insulation, while 71% do not have any thermal insulation. Additionally, the wide diffusion of heating appliances aging over 10 years and firewood with the average moisture content of 37% further contribute to such unfavourable situation in terms of energy efficiency. The parameters of the obtained econometric model of wood energy consumption clearly show that the greatest savings in the consumption of wood energy in the short term could be obtained by improving the condition of the thermal insulation of the residential buildings, replacing the old heating appliances with the new and the more efficient ones, as well as by using drier firewood.

The paper presents the results of researching wood pellets market in nine countries in South East Europe and Slovakia. Objective of the research was to observe the actual situation regarding the number of producers, size of installed capacities, production volume, foreign trade flows and existing problems and obstacles which significantly limit the sustainable development of wood pellets market in the selected countries. Selection of such an objective results from the fact that according to the stated elements there are no sufficiently reliable data, wherefore this region is a huge gap in numerous reports of international and national organizations and institutions. Results of the conducted research show that in the middle of 2014, 245 producers were engaged in wood pellets production in South East Europe and Slovakia, 116 of which were located in Bulgaria and Serbia. Most of the producers of wood pellets has installed capacities of 1,000-5,000 tons annually, while only 18 factories in the entire region have the installed capacity over 30,000 tons/year. Observed collectively in all stated countries, the total installed capacities for wood pellets production were 2.2 million tons in 2013 and the realized production was 1.36 million tons. The largest part of the produced amounts of wood pellets in this region is exported. 1.06 million tons were exported from the region in 2013, which is 77.9% of the realized production. Such high export is the result of the underdevelopment of the local market (Slovenia is the only exception) and the problems which exist and limit its faster development in most countries.