EU governments have endorsed without question the delay in the entry into force of regulations to combat deforestation. The Council of the EU has given its approval to the one-year delay proposed by the European Commission without a vote having been taken. No government has taken a position against it and it has been directly approved, as diplomatic sources have informed elDiario.es. The next step now is the vote in the European Parliament.
The EUDR regulation seeks 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, soybeans, 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 established a deadline until December of this year so that companies from third countries had to comply with the new requirements. The pressure has come from several directions: the European People’s Party, countries like Germany, trade partners from Australia to Brazil and the affected sectors, such as distribution. And the European Commission succumbed and proposed a delay of one year: that the regulation begin 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 in their due diligence obligations, which consists of ensuring that certain raw materials and products sold in the EU or exported from the EU are free of deforestation. These are products derived from livestock, wood, cocoa, soy, palm oil, coffee, rubber and some of their derivatives,” the EU Council says in a statement.
The next step will be for the European Parliament to vote on the proposal, which will likely go ahead with the vote of the EPP and the extreme right. The Socialists have rejected Von der Leyen’s proposal, as have the Greens, while the Liberals are divided.
Source: www.eldiario.es
