Council Regulation (EC) No 2173/2005 of 20 December 2005 on the establishment of a FLEGT licensing scheme for imports of timber into the European Community

‘Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade licensing scheme’ (hereinafter referred to as FLEGT licensing scheme) means the issuing of licences for timber products for export to the Community from partner countries and its implementation in the Community, in particular in Community provisions on border controls;

‘partner country’ means any State or regional organisation that enters into a Partnership Agreement, as listed in Annex I;

‘Partnership Agreement’ means an agreement between the Community and a partner country by which the Community and that partner country undertake to work together in support of the FLEGT Action Plan and to implement the FLEGT licensing scheme;

‘regional organisation’ means an organisation consisting of sovereign states that have transferred competence to that organisation, granting it the capacity to enter into a Partnership Agreement on their behalf, in respect of matters governed by the FLEGT licensing scheme, as listed in Annex I;

‘FLEGT licence’ means a shipment-based or market participant-based document of a standard format which is to be forgery-resistant, tamper-proof, and verifiable, and which refers to a shipment as being in compliance with the requirements of the FLEGT licensing scheme, duly issued and validated by a partner country’s licensing authority. Systems for issuing, recording and communicating licences may be paper-based or based on electronic means, as appropriate;

‘market participant’ means an actor, private or public, involved in forestry or transformation or trade of timber products;

‘licensing authority(ies)’ means the authority(ies) designated by a partner country to issue and validate FLEGT licences;

‘competent authority(ies)’ means the authority(ies) designated by Member States to verify FLEGT licences;

‘timber products’ means the products set out in Annexes II and III, to which the FLEGT licensing scheme applies, and which, when imported into the Community, cannot be qualified as ‘goods of a non-commercial nature’ as defined in point 6 of Article 1 of Commission Regulation (EEC) No 2454/93 of 2 July 1993 laying down provisions for the implementation of Council Regulation (EEC) No 2913/92 establishing the Community Customs Code (¹);

‘legally produced timber’ means timber products produced from domestic timber that was legally harvested or timber that was legally imported into a partner country in accordance with national laws determined by that partner country as set out in the Partnership Agreement;

‘imports’ means the release for free circulation of timber products within the meaning of Article 79 of Council Regulation (EEC) No 2913/1992 of 12 October 1992 establishing the Community Customs Code (²)

‘shipment’ means a shipment of timber products;

‘export’ means the physical leaving or taking out of timber products from any part of the geographical territory of a partner country to bring them into the Community;

‘third-party monitoring’ means a system through which an organisation that is independent of a partner country's government authorities and its forest and timber sector monitors and reports on the operation of the FLEGT licensing scheme.