Europe delays deforestation regulation again

Lawmakers in the European Parliament have voted by 402 to 250 in favour of another delay to the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), to the dismay of environmental organisations and other groups.

The vote rubber-stamps another one-year hiatus in the implementation of the already-late EUDR, a move that had already been backed by the Council of the European Union sets the start date to January 2027 for medium and large enterprises and July 2027 for smaller organisations.

Lawmakers also voted to simplify the regulation, by 449 votes to 202, which critics say amounts to a watering down of its requirements.

The EUDR was introduced by the European Commission in 2021 and was originally due to come into effect at the end of 2024. It applies to companies placing forest-derived commodities or products on the EU market, or exporting them from it, and includes a requirement for them to show that they do not drive deforestation, forest degradation, or illegal harvesting and trade, as well as traceability back to the plot of land on which they were sourced.

It covers materials used by a wide range of industrial sectors, namely wood and wood products, cattle, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, rubber and soy, as well as certain derived products, such as leather, chocolate, tyres, and furniture. 

To come into compliance – at least for the EUDR in its current form – companies and their suppliers would have to meet obligations like recording geolocation data of the area of production and ensuring traceability of products to the plot of land, with due diligence statements submitted to a centralised EU information system.

Among the changes – which will now be subject to negotiation with the Council of the EU – are the removal of printed materials like books and magazines from its scope, and reductions to the reporting requirements of downstream supply chain partners like traders, which should no longer be required to submit due diligence statements to the EUDR IT system.

There have been concerns among groups like the WWF, Greenpeace, and other organisations about what they regard as efforts to weaken the regulation, particularly as a new negotiation phase could open it up for further alterations.

In a statement, the WWF's policy manager for forests, Anke Schulmeister-Oldenhove, said: "What started as an IT issue has morphed into a chaotic and unmanageable situation. The European Commission must urgently clean up this mess and take back control."

The Commission flagged IT problems as a potential obstacle to the application of the regulation in October, she noted. However, while policymakers should have focused on fixing a technical issue to move forward, that was seized upon by the Council and Parliament as a pretext to "reopen the file, weaken it and create massive uncertainty around EUDR implementation."

“The approach adopted today represents a complete withdrawal from responsibility towards future generations, who will bear the cost of delayed action,” said Schulmeister-Oldenhove.

The Commission needs to learn from this lesson: it must stop the dismantling of the EUDR…All hell will break loose with more simplification."