Romania’s Ministry of Environment checks Austrian timber producer’s local operations
The Romanian Ministry of Environment and Climate Change hast started a control at Austrian group Holzindustrie Schweighofer’s local units in Sebes and Radauti.
“We can confirm that earlier this morning our control teams went on inspection at Holzindustrie Schweighofer’s Romanian headquarters. We took this initiative after local and international press reports about the company’s activity. The control results will be announced in the following period,” said sources from the Ministry of Environment quoted by local Agerpres.
Holzindustrie Schweighofer, the biggest wood processing company in Romania, has been in the center of a media scandal in recent weeks after an international environmental organization presented evidence that the group was encouraging illegal forest cutting in Romania.
The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), an international environmental organization, recently released a video exposing the leadership of Holzindustrie Schweighofer willingly and knowingly accepting illegally harvested timber and incentivizing additional illegal cutting through a bonus system.
Undercover EIA investigators posed as foreign investors who had acquired the rights to cut a specified amount of timber on land owned by communities in Romania. They told Schweighofer officials that they intended to cut more than was permitted under contract and they needed assurances that the company would accept the wood. On all occasions, Schweighofer officials confirmed they would buy the wood and further offered a bonus for any additional wood delivered, according to EIA.
Austrian businessman Gerald Schweighofer, the company’s owner, issued a statement denying the allegations. “Statements of a company employee presented in a recent video material published by EIA have been massively shortened according to the involved employees, presented in a false context and are therefore misleading and providing wrongful information,” reads the statement.
“Holzindustrie Schweighofer is and has always been strictly committed to responsible wood processing. The company strongly rejects all accusations that it is supporting or a benefiter of illegal wood trading,” the company’s owner said in the same statement.
However, the company said it would re-check of all internal processes and suppliers.
The Austrian group has been lobbying in the past months against the new Forestry Code, which would limit its operations in Romania. The Parliament passed the new law on wood exploitation at the end of February, but Romania’s President Klaus Iohannis sent it back for reexamination at the end of March.
Holzindustrie Schweighofer has invested some EUR 778 million in Romania starting 2002 and currently has some 2,500 employees in the country. The group had a turnover of EUR 510 million in Romania in 2013. It estimated EUR 700 million in revenues for 2015.
editor@romania-insider.com
