The rollout of the European Union’s flagship anti-deforestation law looks set to be delayed for a further year – just over three months before it was due to take effect.
European environment commissioner Jessika Roswall confirmed weeks of rumours over the EUDR’s second postponement on Tuesday – telling reporters in Brussels it was her intention to delay the implementation of the legislation until the start of 2027 at the earliest, due to “IT issues”.
Touted as one of the biggest shake-ups to global agrifood supply chains in recent years, the EUDR requires companies selling products to the bloc derived from seven commodities notoriously linked to deforestation, such as cocoa, coffee, soy and palm oil, to provide extensive documentary evidence they were sourced from deforestation-free lands.
Significant financial penalties can be imposed under the regulation, with a maximum fine stretching to at least 4% of a company’s total annual EU turnover.
Its implementation date of December 2024 was delayed for a year last October in response to “calls by global partners” for more time.
And following calls from major companies such as Lavazza and Mondelez for a further delay this year, the EU Commission would now notify the European Parliament’s Environment Committee chair, Antonio Decaro, and the Danish presidency over its plan for a further delay, said Roswall.
“This is a legislation that we have been working hard on for many years,” added the Swedish politician. “It is a key initiative to fight deforestation, and we are still very committed to continue to fight deforestation.”
The Commission had also “tried to focus on simplification” of the regulation over the past year, Roswall stressed.
But despite these efforts it would be unable to avoid disruption for businesses and supply chains, she admitted, pointing to the sheer scale of information required to be submitted under the EUDR and misgivings over IT system capacity.
Roswall also denied the delay had been prompted by pressure from countries such as Brazil, Indonesia and the US. It comes after the EU agreed to “address the concerns” of US producers and exporters over the law “with a view to avoiding undue impact on US-EU trade”, when the bloc agreed a trade deal with Donald Trump’s administration last month.
The Commission’s move was described as “surprising and embarrassing” by the World Wide Fund for Nature, which likened its reasoning to an excuse like ‘the dog ate my homework’.
“It is probably no coincidence that this move comes right as the Commission pursues an unprecedented deregulation agenda, throwing the EUDR under the bus,” said WWF policy manager Anke Schulmeister-Oldenhove.
“This is unacceptable and a massive embarrassment for President [Ursula] von der Leyen and her Commission. If this technical issue is real, this shows not only incompetence, but also a clear lack of political will to invest sufficiently in a timely implementation of the EUDR,” she added.
“We’re calling on the Commission to step up its efforts and investments to get this system up and running by the end of the year instead of proposing a further delay of this important law, and caving in to political pressure.”
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