The New European Union Forest Strategy for 2030 has been controversially discussed by all relevant interest groups: member states, forest owners, forest-related industry, environmental NGOs. The analysis reveals two central conflicts characterizing the Strategy: sovereignty vs. increased Union control—the primary concern of member states and forest owners; and commodity vs. amenity—a central issue between forest-based industry and environmental NGOs. In this respect it is interesting to note that, while being competitors over influence in European forest policy, both forest-related industry and environmental NGOs share the demand for clearer definitions in the Strategy. The Commission’s position is discussed in view of the central conflicts with no unequivocal results—while in the first conflict the Commission can be assumed to, indeed, seek to obtain more power vis-à-vis the member states, with regard to the second conflict three assumptions are on the horizon: (i) the Commission tries to balance the demands of commodity and amenity- oriented interest groups; (ii) despite environmental rhetoric used, the Strategy is dominated by economic goals; (iii) the strategic vision of the Commission inclines towards environmental goals.

This work sets out to apply the Policy Coherence Framework (PCF) to the case of climate policy, taking into account the European, German and Thuringian political levels of analysis. It combines an analysis of vertical coherence between these levels and horizontal coherence within and between different sectoral policies. The study demonstrates disparities between coherence within climate policy itself and between other policy sectors as regards forest area development. It further reveals some contradictions between economic and ecological goals in German climate policy, particularly as concerns the role of forests. According to the authors, this observation can, at least in part, be explained by the national security obligations of Germany as a nation state. This assumption is supported by the observation that the regional level of Thuringia is more consistent with the supranational level of the European Union, both of which can “afford” to favour ecology over economy due to not being nation states. Another finding suggests that the broad and ambiguous definition of climate policy causes many contradictions, leading to an “omnipresence” of climate policy, and in doing so, strips it of its meaning and, consequently, practical relevance.

Arguing from the traditional point of view with regard to the concept of securitization, this work analyses the effects securitization has on international environmental policy on the example of four case studies—the Rio Conference, the climate change regime, the ozone depletion regime as well as the fragmented forest regime. Contrasting securitization to the variables of regime complexity and the national interest, its twofold effects become evident. While succeeding in “raising the stakes” of an issue, securitization at the same time provokes conflicts between either the actors involved (e.g., forest convention negotiations) or the actors and the regime itself (e.g., climate change regime).

A comparison between the most relevant forest-focused and forest-related EU policies from the time periods of the three EU forest(ry) strategies of 1998, 2013 and 2021 has revealed an overall rise in the number of forest-related policies that is mainly rooted in the environmental policy sector. Next to the increasing number of policies, a growing preference for regulations over directives as policy instruments was identified. New policy fields that have gained increasing importance over the last 25 years, most prominently climate, energy and bioeconomy policy, create and define additional demands on forests through their cross-cutting relations with other policy sectors. At the same time, multi-issue strategies that have recently been employed by the European Commission might turn out to be unable to solve the trade-offs that are produced by opposing policy goals.

This article seeks to analyse the security dilemma in light of the transforming international system of today. Hereby, K. Waltz’s three images of war (men, the state, the international system) were taken as the basic approaches to the causes of the problem, while the carcass for the formulated systemic macro-models (federal world government, mature anarchy, balance of power) was provided by the key IR theories. The logic behind this approach lies in the belief that the international system periodically re-structures itself as to form the most stable structure possible for the respective period in history. The analysis revealed that the foundation of a federal world government could be excluded with near absolute certainty, while the prevalence of either the mature anarchy or the balance of power model was found to depend on whether the mental and physical interdependencies generated by the forces of globalization can create universal values and which functional type of the key international regimes they produce – cooperation or coordination. The results indicated the primacy of a multipolar power system balanced between civilizational blocs, which proved to be a natural consequence of the verified systemic trends as well as to display a sufficient potential for stability.