The European Parliament has voted to amend and postpone the EU Deforestation Regulation which is due to come into force at the end of this year.
The new regulation means that companies will only be allowed to sell products in the EU if the supplier provides a “due diligence” statement confirming that the product does not come from deforested land or has led to forest degradation.
The law would cover a range of products including beef, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, rubber, soy and wood.
The objective of the regulation is to minimise the EU’s contribution to global deforestation and forest degradation and to reduce the EU’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and global biodiversity loss.
The regulation, which was passed by the EU institutions in 2023, was set to become binding on December 30, 2024, for large enterprises, and six months later for small and micro-enterprises.
In October, the European Commission proposed to delay the deadlines by one year, shifting them to the end of 2025 for large companies and mid-2026 for smaller enterprises.
The commission said that the introduction of the regulation should be postponed “to ensure proper and effective implementation of the regulation”.
Deforestation
The parliament has now backed the position taken by the commission and also approved a series of eight amendments to the text, which will require the approval of the EU Council.
The parliament said that the additional time “would help operators around the world to implement the rules smoothly from the start without undermining the objectives of the law”.
The amendments proposed by the parliament, including the creation of a new category of countries posing “no risk” on deforestation in addition to the existing three categories of “low”, “standard” and “high” risk.
Countries classified as “no risk”, defined as countries with stable or increasing forest area development, would face significantly less stringent requirements as there is a negligible or non-existent risk of deforestation.
Regulation
The president of the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) Francie Gorman said that the vote by MEPs to endorse the simplification of the regulation was important.
“While the objective of the regulation is logical, the implementation of it at farm level was going to be onerous and potentially very bureaucratic for farmers.
“Today’s amendments should pave the way for a more streamlined application of the regulation at farm level in Ireland,” he said.
He said that the introduction of an additional category of “Zero Risk” was important as it should help to simplify the requirements for farmers.
However, environmental groups have criticised the delay in implementing the regulation and the “watering down” of the law.
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said the European People’s Party (EPP) and its allies have “effectively voted to enable further forest destruction both within and outside of Europe” with the introduction of a category of “no risk” countries.
“This is a shameful moment for the EPP, and a betrayal of its commitments to European citizens, forward-looking businesses, the world’s forests, and our climate,” Anke Schulmeister-Oldenhove, forests policy manager at WWF European Policy Office, said.
The WWF is calling on EU Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen “to put an end to this carnage and protect her Green Deal legacy” by withdrawing her proposal to delay the implementation of the regulation.