EUDR: Europe proposes postponing anti-deforestation law – 10/02/2024 – Café na Prensa
Following appeals from Brazil and other countries producing agricultural commodities, the European Commission proposed postponing the start of application of its anti-deforestation law.
The European body’s proposal is for the standard to gain at least another year of grace period. The decision, however, still needs to be approved by Parliament and the European Council.
“Taking into account feedback received from international partners on its state of preparedness, the Commission also proposes to give interested parties more time to prepare. If approved by the European Parliament and the Council, it will make the law applicable on 30 December 2025 for large companies and on June 30, 2026 for micro and small companies”, says the European Commission in a statement.
Initially, the law would come into effect on December 30 of this year.
In a statement, the Commission acknowledges that “three months before the scheduled implementation date, several global partners have repeatedly expressed concerns about their state of preparation, most recently during the week of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.”
In a letter sent last month to representatives of the European Union, the ministers of Agriculture, Carlos Fávaro, and Foreign Affairs, Mauro Vieira, said that the bloc’s new anti-deforestation rules could affect 30% of sales of Brazilian products to the continent. And they asked that the rule not be put into practice.
The body says that the decision to propose the postponement will provide “greater clarity to companies and law enforcement authorities, in order to facilitate the application of the rules.”
The Commission says, finally, that it considers “that an additional period of 12 months to gradually introduce the system is a balanced solution to help operators around the world ensure smooth implementation from the start”.
The European Union Deforestation-Free Products Regulation (EUDR) is a standard approved by the European Parliament that prohibits the import of products from areas deforested after December 2020.
The law applies not only to coffee, but also to other products, such as soy, wood, cocoa, palm oil, beef and rubber.
It requires evidence that there has in fact been no deforestation on that property in recent years and provides for high fines for companies that fail to comply with the law.
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