EU governments have unquestioningly approved the delay in the entry into force of regulations aimed at combating deforestation. The EU Council agreed to the one-year postponement proposed by the European Commission without a vote having taken place. No government has taken a position against this project and it has been directly approved, as diplomatic sources informed elDiario.es. The next step is now the vote in the European Parliament.
The EUDR aims to ensure that EU imports do not contribute to forest degradation, which has already caused the loss of some 420 million hectares of forest (an area larger than the European Union) between 1990 and 2020, imposing minimum conditions on imports of a series of products: palm oil, livestock, soy, coffee, cocoa, wood and rubber, as well as their derivatives.
The EU agreed to this regulation in December 2022 and it has been in force since June 2023, but set a deadline until December this year for third-country companies to be required to comply with the new requirements. Pressure has come from several directions: from the European People’s Party, from countries like Germany, from trading partners from Australia to Brazil, and from affected sectors, like retail. And the European Commission succumbed and proposed a one-year delay: that the regulation start to apply on December 30, 2025 for large companies and June 30, 2026 for small companies.
“This postponement will allow third countries, Member States, operators and traders to be fully prepared for their due diligence obligations, which consist of ensuring that certain raw materials and products sold in the EU or exported from the EU are free from deforestation. These are products derived from livestock, wood, cocoa, soya, palm oil, coffee, rubber and certain of their derivatives,” specifies the Council of the EU in a press release.
The next step will be for the European Parliament to vote on the proposal, which will likely be the vote of the EPP and the far right. The Socialists rejected Von der Leyen’s proposal, as did the Greens, while the Liberals are divided.
