The State Forest Service has reported that in May this year it imposed a fine of 10 thousand euros on a company that had carried out high-risk imports of birch plywood and was planning imports from Turkey. According to information held by “Stiga RM”, one of the leading plywood manufacturers in Latvia, Turkey has never been a birch plywood producing country and the plywood brought in most probably originates from Russia or Belarus, thereby breaching the sanctions imposed by the European Union (EU). “Stiga RM” takes an unequivocal view of this situation – if the fight against sanctions breachers is to succeed, they must face far harsher penalties.

“A fine of 10 thousand euros is insufficient – it amounts to only about a third of the value of a single lorry load. It is unlikely to reduce the motivation of sanctions breachers to repeat such activities under the cover of a different legal entity. By providing for low penalties for sanctions breachers, Latvia continues to turn a blind eye to cases of financial support for the aggressor state's regime. Penalties for importing “grey” timber must be higher, and those involved must also face criminal liability in the event of breaches, rather than merely a temporary ban on doing business in their field,” comments Andris Ramoliņš, Chairman of the Board of “Stiga RM”.

According to publicly available information, the importer also received an additional penalty – a one-year ban on exercising the right to place birch plywood on the market. The penalty was imposed for due diligence checks that failed to meet the requirements of the EU Timber Regulation, allowing the risk that timber of Russian origin is placed on the market. Importing such products means breaching the requirements of the EU Timber Regulation, because the risk associated with the raw materials cannot be reduced to “negligible” so that they may be placed on the EU market. Timber and wood products manufactured in Russia or Belarus and subject to the sanctions imposed by the EU are, in turn, deemed to have been obtained illegally.

In view of this, Latvia should pay far greater attention to combating “grey” timber imports. For the third year running, sanctioned Russian and Belarusian timber with forged certificates from Georgia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkey has been flowing across our country's borders uncontrolled and almost unimpeded. Timber imports from these countries have increased tenfold over the past two years alone, which clearly shows that this process is not being adequately controlled and that a far stricter approach should be taken to mitigating external risks, demonstrating clearly and unambiguously a zero-tolerance attitude towards those who breach the rules.