Deforestation: member states reject amendments to EU law by EPP and far-right

Brussels – The gamble of the European People’s Party to amend the EU deforestation law is short-lived. Just days after the controversial vote in the European Parliament that sealed the alliance between the EPP and the far right to rewrite one of the flagship measures of the Green Deal, member states have opposed it. According to diplomatic sources, today (Nov. 20) at the meeting of ambassadors of the 27 member states, “a wide majority” of EU countries rejected the eight additional amendments that the European Parliament narrowly approved.

In an unusual role reversal – in past years, the European Parliament took more progressive positions than the EU Council — the Hungarian rotating presidency of the 27 member states proposed not to accept the additional amendments to the proposed one-year extension of the implementation of the regulation due to “implementation difficulties and the tight procedural timeframe.”

In essence, the 27 member states opposed the introduction of a fourth category of countries with no risk — in addition to low-, medium-, and high-risk countries — of imported deforestation, from which they could continue to import products without new obligations. According to sources, Italy would have expressed support for amendments that “allow for administrative simplification.” Renew MEP Pascal Canfin said in a post on X that “at least 24 member states out of 27” opposed the amendments. Now, “to ensure the one-year delay is met, the Parliament has no choice but to revert to the Commission’s original proposal,” he added.

With today’s decision, the EU ambassadors also remove the European Commission from an uncomfortable situation. Had the 27 confirmed the controversial amendments of the so-called ‘Venezuela majority,’ von der Leyen would have been under pressure to withdraw the text. However, in that way, it would have also meant withdrawing the one-year extension to the regulation’s implementation – scheduled for Dec. 31, 2024 – already approved by EU institutions. At this point, the trialogues will restart, with the Hungarian presidency of the EU Council trying to “ensure a targeted amendment to the Regulation that is limited to the one-year extension so as not to lose the possibility of implementing it by the Regulation implementation date.”