The following communication, received on 14 November 2008, is being circulated at the request of the Delegation of the European Communities.

Wood packaging material circulating under CN Heading 4415 and wood used to wedge and support non-wood cargo (dunnage)

The European Communities notifies hereby the proposal “Draft Commission Directive amending Annex IV to Council Directive 2000/29/EC on protective measures against the introduction into the Community of organisms harmful to plants or plant products and against their spread within the European Communities” (document SANCO/3247/2008 Rev. 8, available in English).
The new directive concerns the special requirements of wood packaging material (WPM) and wood used to wedge or support non-wood cargo that should be respected for the introduction and movement of these commodities into the EC member States.
Following the technical justification of the IPPC Technical Panel on Forest Quarantine, the new directive replaces the existing import requirement that WPM would need to fulfil.
In addition to the implementation of treatment and marking requirements described in ISPM 15, the new EC import requirements provide that the WPM instead of being produced from debarked round wood from 1 January 2009 onwards, will need to be free from bark with exception for the presence of any number of individual pieces of bark. These should be either less than 3 cm in width (regardless of the length) or, if reater than 3 cm in width, of not more than 50 cm2 in area. This latter free-from-bark requirement will be applicable from 1 July 2009 onwards.
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