HIGHLIGHTS Environmental bureaucracies in Germany and Sweden pushed for binding instruments and tried to prevent policy options that open-up for voluntary set-aside instruments. The dominating production-oriented bureaucracies in both countries prioritized options that rely on a high proportion of voluntary protected set-asides. Struggles over competing interests and administrative jurisdiction dominated the development of policy instruments in both countries obstructing political compromise. The domestic struggle between environmental and production-oriented objectives and bureaucracies led to a logjam in the development of substantial forest set-aside policy in both countries. Numerical international targets do not lead to concrete national definitions of land type and concrete amounts of area due to symbolic political language. SUMMARY Under the auspices of the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Aichi Biodiversity Target 11 requires setting aside vast currently managed areas for conservation purposes. Following bureaucratic politics theory, forestry and environmental domestic bureaucracies use these international targets in their struggle for power and territoriality over forested areas. Against this background, this study aims to analyze the resulting politics on setting aside forest areas from active forest management in Germany and Sweden. Employing a qualitative case study design and empirical data from policy documents and key informant interviews, our results indicate that bureaucracies prioritize instruments that are well aligned with their formal objectives, the interests of their informal constituencies, and their territorial interests. Such struggles dominate the development of policy instruments in both countries obstructing political compromise which results in a logjam in the development of substantial forest set-aside policy. We conclude that unless domestic politics and key bureaucracies provide conducive political conditions international commitments will be very difficult to achieve, even if they are formulated into clearly measurable international targets. .