The Forest Sector in EU Member States' National Recovery and Resilience Plans: a preliminary analysis

The role of forests in reaching the environmental policies targets of the European Union (EU) is being increasingly recognised. Consequently, investing in the forest sector takes on a fundamental role. Different funding opportunities are already in place in the EU, but there are some limitations in accessing them. New funding opportunities arose more recently. To support the recovery process of Member States (MS) after the Covid-19 pandemic, the EU is making significant efforts through NextGenerationEU, funding MS after the European Commission (EC) approval of the National Recovery and Resilience Plans (NRRPs). No specific guidelines are present to finance the forest sector. The aim of this paper is to investigate how the forest sector has been taken into account in the NRRPs through an analysis of the contents of 26 NRRPs. Financial investments in the sector by action types have also been analysed. Finally, commonalities and differences between MS have been extracted by means of a cluster analysis. Results show that the majority of MS dedicate a portion of their funds to the forest sector and there were no investments in the sector in only four countries. One-third of MS have foreseen a dedicated portion of the funds to the sector. The forest-related themes most represented in the NRRPs are: biodiversity protection, climate adaptation, forest-based ecosystem services management, climate mitigation, rural development and innovation. The cluster analysis identifies three MS clusters, giving evidence about the MS behaviour in a non-ordinary funding situation. The first one is characterised by more traditional countries, while in the other two clusters innovation plays an important role. The second cluster orients innovation towards wood-related products, while innovation in the third cluster is addressed to support forest multifunctionality. Results can support national and European decision-makers to plan national strategies, funds allocation, or to act at European level knowing which are the priorities given by the different MS.