The Government Barometer presented on this website is a WWF rating of the EU governments' commitments towards the elimination of illegal logging and the actions they are taking to achieve this.

The Government Barometer survey has been conducted by WWF and the ratings of the EU governments are the responsibility of WWF.

The scorings of the fourth round of the Government Barometer were conducted during January to March 2007. The scores were generated either by a WWF representative based in the country in question or by a consultant, and a scoring team to ensure consistency across all the countries. The current Government Barometer was launched in April 2007. It is the fourth Government Barometer survey and covers 26 EU Member States and Switzerland. The first survey was launched in April 2004 and covered the 'old' EU Member States only; the second and third surveys were launched in September 2004, and April 2006 respectively and achieved a much wider coverage of old and new Member States. As far as possible, the questions have largely remained the same since the first scoring to enable the maximum amount of comparability. This allows us to assess changes over time in government attitudes and actions.

In this rating of the EU governments we have focused on 10 issues which are important in ensuring effective action against illegal logging. The maximum score in last year's scorings was 22 points. This year, the maximum score has been decreased to 20 points. Question 1 was dropped because the European Commission has now implemented a Regulation which allows for the negotiation of Voluntary Partnership Agreements.

The following scoring scales have been used in 2007:

14 up to 20 points inclusive: good
(in 2006: 16 - 22 points; in 2004: 13 - 18 points)

from 8 up to but not including 14 points: on the right path, but needs improvement
(in 2006: 9 - 15 points: in 2004: 7 - 12 points)

up to but not including 8 points : inadequate
(in 2006: 0 - 8; in 2004: 0 - 6 points)

We have given a score between 0 and 2 to reflect the governments' performance with regard to each of the 10 issues. A total score has been calculated for each country, as has the average score for each question.