Brussels – It is not yet time for the European law on deforestation. For the second time, the European Commission will propose postponing its implementation by one year, bringing the deadline to 31 December 2026. One year ago, the reopening of a key dossier of the Green Deal wanted by Ursula von der Leyen had been justified by the need for more clarity and more time for companies. This time, the problem would be technical. “We have serious concerns in terms of capacity regarding the IT system, given the expected load,” an EU executive spokesperson explained today.
Making the announcement like a bolt out of the blue was Environment Commissioner Jessica Roswall upon her arrival at the EU Agriculture Council this morning. “We will try with the co-legislators to ask for a one-year delay” for the law on imported deforestation (EUDR), she said. Specifically, the regulation should prevent the entry into the single market of products resulting from the overexploitation of forest areas, imposing greater control of the supply chain on companies.
After the first postponement, the European Commission introduced several changes to the guidelines in April to reduce costs and burdens on companies by around 30 per cent. These include, for example, the possibility of reusing impact statements for re-imported goods and submitting them annually instead of for each shipment or batch placed on the EU market. Again, in July, 18 member countries, including Italy, signed a letter to Commissioner Roswall calling for further simplification of the rules.
“Despite our efforts at simplification, we still feel that we cannot get rid of the disruptions to our business and supply chains, and we have expressed concern regarding the IT system, given the amount of information we enter into the system,” Roswall pointed out. Suggesting that an extra year will allow for evaluating the different risks associated with this load of information entering the system, as well as other risks.
Roswall has already informed the EU Council and the Parliament of her intention to postpone the implementation of the regulation further. In essence, the law requires the Commission to develop and operate an IT system to enable its implementation. This system, which has been implemented for about a year, cannot currently handle the amount of data required from operators to fulfil their obligations. The software chosen by the EU executive “is a business system already used in other areas where operators have to provide declarations, mainly in the field of health,” explained an EU official.
Anyone who imports goods into the EU market containing, e.g. palm oil, wood, beef, rubber, but also various associated materials, such as leather, chocolate, furniture, printed paper, and charcoal, must upload a declaration into the system to ensure that the product does not come from an area affected by deforestation. This concerns “both importers and companies that will buy such products and place them on the market,” a source further explained. The European Commission’s initial estimates were “around 100 million declarations per year.” But now that the system is up and running and companies have already started using it, we are already at “ten times that amount,” says Brussels.
It is clear that there are two ways to solve the problem. On the one hand, to enhance the performance and capacity of the IT system, and on the other hand, to alleviate the obligations for companies and thereby reduce the burden of required declarations. “We need to take a step back and see how to deal with this risk, finding the right balance to ensure the proper functioning of the system,” the source explained. What are the best means to achieve this? “This is something we will discuss with the Parliament and the Council.”
In the EU Parliament, last year’s postponement of the legislation had already triggered intense controversy within the pro-European majority supporting Ursula von der Leyen. The European People’s Party has repeatedly made the case for the urgency of revising the EUDR structure, going far beyond a mere postponement. As well as “welcoming” the European Commission’s announcement, today the EPP reiterated “the deep problems” of the regulation. According to Peter Liese, spokesperson for the People’s Party for the Environment, “it is now urgent to make simplifications“: to exempt “from any obligation” European farmers and those from third countries where “clear guidelines exist and deforestation does not occur.”
Just yesterday, during a meeting at the European Parliament, Confagricoltura and Federlegno sounded the alarm over the “increasingly short time available” to amend the regulation. “Further reduce the burdens on SMEs and concentrate due diligence obligations on the first operators, strengthen the information system, and ensure a country risk classification more in line with reality,” were some of the requests of the two Italian industrial sectors.
For the socialist family, however, “delaying the implementation of the regulation once again would be a serious step backwards for European environmental policy and fair competition between sustainable companies.” The group accuses the Commission of hiding behind “a flimsy pretext,” because the implementation of the regulation has already been delayed for a year, and the Commission has published detailed guidelines to enable companies to “implement it without red tape.”
From the group, which is Ursula’s second-largest shareholder, comes a warning to the Commission president: “She must know that by giving in to the EPP and the extreme right, she jeopardises the cooperation of the pro-European forces at the centre of the political spectrum.” Whether this is a real or insubstantial threat, the Socialists could prove it as early as the beginning of October, when the European Parliament will vote in Strasbourg on two non-confidence motions to von der Leyen, promoted by the extreme right and the radical left. Valentina Palmisano, MEP of the 5 Star Movement, immediately took a dig at the other progressive groups: “How many more slaps must the European Greens and Socialists take before admitting that this Commission is increasingly siding to the right?” asks Palmisano, urging them to take advantage of “the historic opportunity to send von der Leyen home and undo all the disasters she is making.”
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
