The controversial paper manufacturer's Golden Plus and Lucky Boss brands were awarded the Ecolabel flower logo in 2006; prompting criticism from the environmental group FERN in its paper EU Ecolabel allows forest destruction.
French firm AFNOR carried out the audit (the same firm which originally awarded the Ecolabel to the two brands) a summary of which is available here, although the full report has not been made available.
The European Commission stated: "The audit clearly proves that there was a full compliance with the criteria of the EU Ecolabel for copying and graphic paper valid at that time, especially on criterion three - sustainable forest management."
APP managing director Aida Greenbury told PrintWeek that the result was a positive move for Europe, due to the decreasing production coming out of the continent.
She said: "By 2020 it has been projected that Europe will be facing a shortage of 210m tonnes of wood across all sectors so we believe markets like Indonesia will be increasingly important in the global pulp and paper industry.
"Growth in Europe is important to us as we strive to expand our global footprint in a responsible manner. We market our products in more than 120 countries across six continents and we need to respect and comply to our market countries' requirement and vice versa.
"We hope this in-depth audit reassures our customers and consumers that our production facilities and forest management systems of our suppliers are socially and environmentally sustainable."
However, FERN has hit back at the European Commission's announcement.
The environmental NGO has questioned APP's supply chain as well as the low requirements of the Ecolabel scheme itself, which states that at least 10% of the fibre raw material must be sourced from certified forests.
The organisation said that, because AFNOR's full report was not publicly available, it could not check if its concerns have been met.
Campaign coordinator Saskia Ozinga said: "To us these developments show the key problems with the EU Ecolabel. We have no indication that the problems we pointed to in our report have been solved and we have no indication that AFNOR has even looked at these problems.
"Therefore the process clearly shows the problems with the reliability and accountability of the EU Ecolabel."
