Since the month of September the EFI is no longer a Finish association but it is now a intergovernmental organisation. Today, 10 out of the 20 States that have signed the convention of the EFI in 2003 have confirmed it. The EFI is now in a European authority position of reference for all questions related with forestry and forest research.

This new status brings with it some demands from the signatory States, mainly if they are financers. Until today, all the fix incomings of the EFI came from the Finish State, thus it was logical that the management of this organisation was done in Finland. However, the Spanish State has declared to be ready to contribute financially to the EFI; the negotiations took place to finally conclude by a “Regional Office”. The difference from the current regional centres which have no structural link with the EFI, they are only linked by a convention stating the content of the activities to be carried out, is that the regional offices will be a decentralised office of the EFI. The personnel working on them will be from the EFI and the funding of these offices will be managed by the headquarters which will be in Joensuu, Finland. Thus in Catalogne there will be the regional centre MEDFOREX and the regional office EFIMED.
More information can be found on the information letter sent to the regional centres.